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The 2019 Pensions & Investments money manager data, with an as of date of Dec. 31, 2018, are now live in the P&I Research Center.
Pensions & Investments will soon launch a new database to cover private funds closings, tracking back to 2010.Assets invested in private equity, credit strategies, real assets and real estate have soared over the past decade. The database will track large institutional funds with more than $1 billion in total commitments. This is the first database that will utilize P&I's new design of the Research Center, a project that provided more data points and increased analytics.
Defined contribution record keepers have begun to integrate with personal digital assistants. In Pensions & Investments' latest survey, six of 36 record keepers reported integration with a digital assistant. The record keepers with integration are some of the largest companies, including Fidelity Investments, TIAA-CREF and Alight Solutions. Voice-activated digital assistants can reach almost 40 million participants with more than $3.5 trillion in assets.
During the first quarter of 2019, 23 ERISA-related lawsuits have been filed and/or updated with 30 stories written. Seventy-nine stories were written on 65 ERISA cases in 2018. The involved parties either reached a settlement, filed an appeal or a court decision was made.
Hiring activity increased 102.2% from the fourth quarter to $105.76 billion, mostly due to Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund's $45 billion investment in SoftBank Vision Fund. Excluding the SoftBank investment, hiring activity increased 16.19% for the quarter and dipped 1.53% from the same period a year ago. Blackstone won 23 mandates, totaling $5.01 billion, for alternative investments in Capital Partners VIII, Real Estate Partners Europe VI, Real Estate Partners IX, Tactical Opportunities Fund III and Infrastructure Partners funds.
Sixteen money management deals took place in the first quarter of 2019, an 36% decrease from the previous quarter. In the first quarter of 2018, there were 33 transactions. Assets under management involved in the transactions totaled $156.53 billion, down 80% from $780.92 billion in the previous quarter and a decline of 89% from the same period a year ago. In the first quarter, Brookfield Asset Management agreed to acquire about 62% of Oaktree Capital Group's business for $4.7 billion, with 50% in cash and 50% in 51.4 million Brookfield shares. Howard Marks, Oaktree co-chairman and co-founder, will join Brookfield's board of directors, and the two companies together will have about $475 billion in AUM. Also in the quarter, Fiera Capital Corp. announced the acquisition of Integrated Asset Management Corp. for $74 million. IAM's private debt investment and industrial real estate team will be incorporated into Fiera Private Lending and Fiera Properties, respectively.
Due to soaring interest in private investments by institutional investors as well as the long-term allocation shift to private markets that we have observed in recent years, Pensions & Investments is launching a new database to cover private funds closed starting in 2010. Along with P&I survey data, P&IQ Searches & Hires database information, Pensions & Investments aims to paint a clear picture of private capital markets growth.
With strong market returns for the year ended Sept. 30, assets of the 1,000 largest U.S. retirement plans rose to another all-time high.
Search activity for the fourth quarter of 2018 increased 14.5% from the prior quarter, and was up 47% from the fourth quarter of 2017. Hiring activity decreased 28.7% from the third quarter to $52.29 billion, down 18.8% from the period a year ago. Kempen Capital Management won a $9.6 billion fiduciary management mandate from Stichting Pensioenfonds PostNL.
Twenty-five money management deals took place in the fourth quarter, an 11% decrease from the previous quarter. In the fourth quarter of 2017, there were 31 transactions. AUM involved in the transactions totaled $780.92 billion, up 279% from $205.92 billion from the previous quarter. However, total assets involved decreased 41% from the same period a year ago.