Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System, Des Moines, selected five managers to run a total of about $300 million in absolute return strategies, confirmed Shawna Lode, spokeswoman for the $36 billion pension plan.
At its quarterly meeting on Thursday, the board hired Aspect Capital, Man Group, Pacific Investment Management Co., P/E Investments and Welton Investment Partners for IPERS' liquid absolute return strategies portfolio. It has yet to be determined how much will be allocated to each manager.
IPERS issued the RFP in October 2019 to identify absolute return investment managers that could be used in a portable alpha strategy.
The board also approved the system's first internally managed investment program intended to systematically invest in alternative risk premia. The program will start with $300 million of exposure but could be expanded based on the success of the program.
Also, IPERS plans to commit $960 million to private equity investments, $900 million to private credit strategies and $300 million to private real asset strategies in 2021.
The private equity commitments will be invested through IPERS' private equity manager Pathway Capital Management. Most of the private credit commitments will be made to several private credit funds that will be selected from IPERS' current opportunistic private credit search. The remainder will go to existing fund relationships.
IPERS CEO Gregory Samorajski told Pensions & Investments in October that the pension fund is looking to both increase its allocation to less liquid investments and manage some of its public securities in-house as a cost-reducing measure.
IPERS board recently approved upping the pension plan's allocation to private credit to 8% from 3%, or to roughly $2.7 billion from $1 billion.
Separately, IPERS plans to issue RFPs for private real asset strategies and private real estate debt strategies in 2021.
