Austin (Texas) Firefighters Retirement Fund is searching for an investment consultant to complete a triennial project to evaluate its investment practices and performance.
The $1.1 billion pension fund is seeking proposals from investment consultants "to evaluate the appropriateness, adequacy, and effectiveness of the investment practices and performance of the fund and to make recommendations for improving AFRF's investment policies, procedures, and practices," according to an RFP on its website.
The RFP is being issued to comply with Section 802.109 of the Texas Government Code, which requires a triennial review to be submitted to the Texas Pension Review Board, the state agency mandated to oversee all Texas public retirement systems. It would be the second such review for the pension fund.
In 2019, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 322, mandating public pension funds to provide "comprehensive analysis of the retirement system's investment process that covers all asset classes," according to the text of the law. Public funds at the time had until June 1, 2020, to submit their first evaluation reports.
Reports must be filed every three years for plans with more than $100 million in assets and every six years for plans with assets between $30 million and $100 million. Plans with less than $30 million are exempt from the reporting requirement.
The board used its ongoing investment consultant Meketa Investment Group to complete the project in 2020, but this time the board is seeking a third-party firm and thus Meketa is not eligible to rebid, said Gina Gleason, board and operations specialist at the pension fund, in an email.
The pension fund's target allocation is 30% fixed income, 22% international equities, 20% domestic equities, 15% private equity, 10% real estate and 3% natural resources.
The RFP is available on the pension fund's website. Proposals are due at 5 p.m. CDT on Aug. 11. A timeline for a selection was not provided.
