Kern County Employees' Retirement Association, Bakersfield, Calif., hired Aristotle Pacific Capital to manage a $240 million short-duration fixed-income portfolio, according to materials included in the Feb. 12 board meeting.
The Aristotle short-duration bond strategy will invest primarily in investment-grade corporate bonds with maturities of one to three years, according to a Dec. 11 letter from CIO Daryn Miller and other senior investment staff to the board of retirement.
The $6.2 billion pension fund has a 25% target allocation to fixed income, which is bifurcated into a 15% core allocation and a 10% credit allocation. The Aristotle portfolio would be classified as short-term investment-grade credit and form part of the broader core allocation.
The KCERA portfolio currently has no short-term investment-grade credit exposure.
As of Sept. 30, the fixed-income portfolio had $1.2 billion in assets, with $723 million in core fixed income.
Partial funding will come from the pension fund reducing part of its exposure to the Mellon Aggregate Bond Fund by $60 million.
