Illinois Police Officers’ Pension Investment Fund, Peoria, hired Capital Group to run about $150 million in active emerging markets debt.
The $11.1 billion pension investment fund’s board approved the hiring at its Sept. 13 meeting, a webcast of the meeting showed.
IPOPIF issued an RFP in March as part of its continuing buildout of its long-term investment policy. The Police Officers' Pension Investment Fund was created by a law signed in December 2019 by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker consolidating 649 downstate and suburban police and fire pension plans into two new pension funds.
During the transition of assets in the intervening years to IPOPIF from the individual municipal pension funds, the board hired State Street Global Advisors to manage passive fixed-income portfolios, including $570 million in emerging markets debt.
The investment fund's interim target allocation to emerging markets debt is 6%; the long-term target is 3%. The search was intended to begin building out the asset class with a 1.5% allocation to a single manager that utilizes a blended approach across sovereign and corporate debt issues using hard or local currency, the RFP had said. Funding comes from the passive portfolio.
The other finalists were MetLife Investment Management and Payden & Rygel.
Investment consultant Verus Advisory assisted.
