The board of Kern County Employees' Retirement Association, Bakersfield, Calif., approved a commitment of up $180 million to the KKR U.S. Broadly Syndicated Loan Fund, confirmed Melekte Yohannes, investment analyst at KCERA.
The approval was passed by the board at its Oct. 3 meeting.
The KKR fund will pursue a bank loan investment mandate, and will be part of KCERA’s fixed income allocation, specifically the credit sleeve, according to the board meeting agenda.
The fixed income allocation comprises two sleeves: core and credit sleeve. As of Aug. 31, 2024, KCERA’s portfolio had approximately $526 million allocated to credit, which represented 8.8% of the fund’s total assets (versus a target allocation of 10%).
Daryn Miller, chief investment officer at KCERA, confirmed this is the pension fund’s “first investment to KKR like this.”
Moreover, the funding for the bank loan mandate was from the pension fund's full redemption of the Western Asset Management high yield mandate. As reported, the board of KCERA approved the termination of the Western Asset high yield account on Sept. 11.
KCERA cited for the termination was that Kenneth Leech, co-CIO of Western Asset, took a leave of absence after receiving a Wells Notice from the SEC. KCERA has about $6 billion in assets.
Kern County Employees' $180 million bank loan fund replaces terminated Western Asset mandate
Sponsored
White Papers
Sponsored Content
Partner Content