San Mateo County Employees' Retirement Association, Redwood City, Calif., hired NISA Investment Advisors to manage $180 million in a core fixed-income strategy, documents from the $4.5 billion pension fund showed.
A private search was conducted after the board increased the pension fund's allocation to core fixed income to 21% from 14%. Verus Advisory, the plan's investment consultant, assisted in the search.
Baird Advisors, Income Research & Management and PGIM Fixed Income were also finalists.
The board selected NISA at its April 28 meeting.
SamCERA also announced that the board had agreed to redeem its position in AQR Delta XN, a diversifying hedge fund managed by AQR Capital Management. The pension plan had $104 million in the fund. No reason for the redemption was given.
Finally, the board also approved changes to the plan's international equities manager structure, including removing its dedicated emerging markets allocation, changing its current passive MSCI EAFE allocation to an MSCI ACWI ex-U.S. IMI mandate, and repositioning the proceeds from the dedicated emerging markets allocation so the allocations among current international equities managers Baillie Gifford, Mondrian Investment Partners and BlackRock are similar.
CIO Michael Coultrip did not return a phone call.
