Seattle City Employees' Retirement System hired Russell Investments to run about $180 million in a passive long-term fixed-income strategy and committed up to $18 million to Global Infrastructure Partners V.
The $3.7 billion pension fund's board approved the actions at its Dec. 14 meeting, said Jason Malinowski, chief investment officer.
The hiring of Russell was the result of the creation of a new target of 5% to long-term fixed income following the completion of an asset-liability study. Other changes to the pension fund's target allocation were an increase to the infrastructure target to 5% from 4%, and decreases to public equities to 46% from 48% and core fixed income to 14% from 18%. Malinowski said no further hires and no terminations will result from the changes.
Targets that remain unchanged are 12% real estate, 11% private equity and 7% credit fixed income.
Also at the Dec. 14 meeting, the board's approval of the commitment to Global Infrastructure Partners V is its third commitment to the manager, which is set to be acquired by BlackRock in a $12.5 billion deal currently scheduled to close in the third quarter of 2024.
SCERS' previous commitments to GIP were up to $15 million to Global Infrastructure Partners IV in 2019 and up to $12 million to Global Infrastructure Partners III in 2016.
As of Sept. 30, the pension fund's actual allocation was 45.2% public equities, 18.2% core fixed income, 14.1% private equity, 12.2% real estate, 7.3% credit fixed income, 2.8% infrastructure and the rest in cash/other.
Investment consultant NEPC assisted.