San Francisco City & County Employees' Retirement System's board has approved partially delegating investment decisions to its CEO/CIO.
The $33.5 billion pension fund's board approved the recommended changes at its July 20 meeting, spokesman Stephen Worsfold said in an email.
The changes include delegation to the CEO/CIO, currently Alison Romano, on making commitments to private markets funds, specifically to those private equity, private credit and real assets funds managed by firms with which the pension fund has made commitments to at least two prior funds. Those two prior funds also must have posted returns in the first or second quartile. The CEO/CIO will also have authority to make co-investments up to certain limits.
The CEO/CIO will also have delegated authority to make additional investments in public markets and absolute-return strategies that have already been approved by the board and funded, and that have outperformed their benchmarks over the past three and five years. The CEO/CIO will also have discretion to terminate managers.
Any private markets commitments to new managers, along with new public markets and absolute-return investments, will still require approval by the board.
In a June 15 memo to the board, Ms. Romano had recommended partially delegating investment decisions to the staff because "doing so will enable the board to align its time and focus on the investment, benefits administration and operational topics that have the greatest impact on the success of the SFERS organization."
