Washington State Investment Board, Olympia, announced manager hires, commitments and investments totaling up to $3.6 billion, spokeswoman Tish Day said in an email.
The board, which oversees $139.6 billion in assets, including $108 billion in defined benefit plan assets, hired Baillie Gifford, GQG Partners, LSV Asset Management and TT International, and rehired Brandes Investment Partners as active emerging markets equity managers to run a total of $2.4 billion. Individual portfolio sizes were not provided.
The board issued an RFP in December due to the pending contract expirations of the incumbent managers, which ran a total of $2.4 billion as of Sept. 30, 2018. The incumbent managers are AQR Capital Management (which managed $692 million as of Sept. 30, 2018), Brandes ($556 million), Lazard Asset Management ($478 million) and Mondrian Investment Partners ($674 million).
Phil Brady, WSIB's legal services specialist, said at the time all managers were invited to rebid. Whether all did so could not be immediately learned.
As of June 30, the actual allocation to public equities with overlay was 33.4%.
Within its private equity asset class, the board committed up to $400 million to buyout fund Green Equity Investors VIII and up to $200 million to middle-market buyout fund Jade Equity Investors, both managed by Leonard Green & Partners; and up to $200 million to Advent Latin American Private Equity Fund VII, a Latin American-focused buyout fund managed by Advent International.
WSIB previously committed up to $350 million to Green Equity Investors VII in 2016 and $250 million to Advent Latin American Fund VI in 2014.
As of June 30, the actual allocation to private equity was 21.5%.
Within its tangible assets asset class, the board invested up to $200 million in Sprott Private Resource Streaming, a hedge fund that targets income-focused investments within the mining sector, and committed up to $100 million each to Ecosystem Investment Partners IV and EIP Alki Partners, both private equity funds that invest in the land-based environmental offset markets created to mitigate permitted impacts to wetlands, streams and other natural resources in the U.S.
As of June 30, the actual allocation to tangible assets was 5.1%.
