Sarasota (Fla.) General Employees' Pension Fund hired Geneva Capital Management to run about $15 million in active domestic small-cap growth equities.
The $149 million pension fund's board approved the hiring at its Sept. 26 meeting, recently released meeting minutes show.
According to the minutes, the board conducted a search after learning that Voya Investment Management would be assigning a new investment team to the small-cap growth equity strategy it had inherited from Allianz Global Investors.
AllianzGI had been the pension fund's incumbent manager, and most of that firm's U.S. investment management team and business had been purchased by Voya earlier this year. News of the purchase broke in May immediately after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced it had charged AllianzGI with a "massive fraudulent scheme" connected to its Structured Alpha strategy that bars the manager from providing investment advisory services in the U.S. for 10 years.
Voya was a finalist, along with D.F. Dent & Co.
As of Sept. 30, the pension fund's actual allocation to total equities was 62.2%; its target range to the asset class is 60% to 70%.
Investment consultant Graystone Consulting assisted.
Debra Martin, administrator for the city's three pension funds, could not be immediately reached for further information.
