Investment Management Weekly articles from December 2004

Investment Management Weekly archives from December 2004

Endowment Funds Post Major Returns.
December 6, 2004... Investments from timber, energy and non-U.S. equity proved to be the best gainers for the top U.S. college endowment funds. According to a Bloomberg survey of more than 25 colleges, Harvard University, Texas A&M University and the...

California U. Creates Real Estate Allocation: Five Percent Allocation to Diversify $40B Portfolio.
December 6, 2004... The University of California's Retirement Plan and General Endowment Pool has created a new allocation to real estate, which represents approximately 5%-roughly $2.5 billion-of its investment portfolio. Calls to officials at the Board of...

Wisconsin May Beef-Up VC Portfolio.
December 6, 2004... The State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB) may be ramping up its local venture capital allocation in the future-if its current investments prove to be lucrative, IMW learned last week. "We are always in a position where we will be...

OPERS Hunts for CMBS Manager.
December 6, 2004... The Ohio Public Employees' Retirement System has launched a search for a high-yield commercial mortgage-backed securities manager, Rich Baker, a spokesman for the fund confirmed last week. With the assistance of its consultant Ennis, Knupp...

Harrigan Booted Out at CalPERS.
December 6, 2004... California Public Employees' Retirement System's (CalPERS) President Sean Harrigan, was shown the door by the majority of his board members last week. According to published reports, the California Personnel Board voted 3 to 2 against...

NYC BAM Fills Vacant CIO Slot.
December 6, 2004... Deborah Gallegos has been appointed CIO of the Bureau of Asset Management (BAM) for the New York City Comptroller's Office. The Comptroller's Office acts as the investment advisor for New York City's retirement systems. Gallegos joins...

Alaska Permanent Hires Two Managers.
December 6, 2004... The $29.4 billion Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation has hired GE Asset Management as its newest large-cap growth manager and Mondrian Investment Partners as its emerging markets manager. The managers will oversee approximately $500 million and...

South Carolina Picks Three for Small-Cap.
December 6, 2004... The $24.5 billion South Carolina Retirement System has hired three new managers to oversee small-cap growth and value investments. Brian Collett, an investment research manager for the system, said that the plan hired Thompson, Siegel and...

Tulare County Wraps Alts Searches.
December 6, 2004... The $770 million Tulare County Employees' Retirement Association (TCERA) is in the final stages of selecting its first private equity and hedge fund managers, said retirement administrator David Kehler. The board was educated on the asset...

San Diego City Snags Real Estate Consultant.
December 6, 2004... The $3 billion San Diego City Employees' Retirement System has hired The Townsend Group as its new real estate consultant. The original search, which was initiated in July, replaced the Russell Investment Group. Russell had been with the...

Babson Appoints New Managing Director.
December 6, 2004... Babson Capital Management has hired Edward Kung as a manager of alternative products and a managing director. The hedge fund expert brings 12 years of marketing and product development experience to the firm. In his new position, Kung will be...

ING Sells Baring Asset Management.
December 6, 2004... ING agreed to sell Baring Asset Management to MassMutual Financial Group and Northern Trust in a deal that ING said would make it a net gain of $325 million. The sale marks the end of Baring, which buckled in February 1995 after...

Retirement Systems' Suit Against Bear Stearns Ends in Mistrial.
December 6, 2004... A lawsuit brought by Retirement Systems of Alabama against Bear Stearns over its 2001 sale of approximately $15 million in bonds to the pension fund ended in a mistrial over a split jury on Nov. 19. According to IMW's sister publication,...

Fidelity Makes Institutional Push Through Research.
December 6, 2004... While many investment management firms keep busy by creating new investment strategies that promise to generate alpha, or by devising new and improved ways to attract clients, Fidelity Management Trust Company (FMTC)-a division of Fidelity...

Odds & Ends.
December 6, 2004... *Michael Lane has been named VP of Dimensional Fund Advisors, where he will be responsible for managing operations in the firm's Financial Advisor Services arm. Lane joins from TIAA-CREF where he was the director of Advisor Services. ...

NYC Public Funds Push for Increased Foreign Disclosure.
December 13, 2004... The retirement systems of New York City, led by Comptroller William Thompson, are urging five U.S. firms to thoroughly review their foreign and offshore subsidiaries' connections with rogue nations. The retirement system of the New York...

Phoenix Preps for Dual Searches.
December 13, 2004... The $1.4 billion City of Phoenix Employees' Retirement System (COPERS) is gearing up to launch searches that could spell the end for two incumbents-Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM) and Columbus Circle Investors-which oversee a $150...

Mercer Loses Two Key Professionals.
December 13, 2004... Mercer Investment Consulting will be short two key executives come next week, when consultants Greg Young and Perry Williams leave the firm on Dec. 17 to pursue opportunities in asset management. Both Young and Williams work at the firm's...

NACM Portfolio Manager Leaves Firm: Smith Said To Be Terminated From Firm.
December 13, 2004... Thomas Smith veteran portfolio manager at Nicholas-Applegate Capital Management is said to have been terminated from the firm on Dec. 3. According to industry sources, Smith was terminated from the firm for performance issues. NACM...

RREEF on Watch in Santa Barbara.
December 13, 2004... The $1.4 billion Santa Barbara County Employees' Retirement System has placed RREEF on watch. Oscar Peters, plan administrator said that the firm's watch status was sparked by the recent retirement of Karen Knudson, a principal and...

Florida Plan to Study Assets.
December 13, 2004... The $439 million City of Clearwater Pension Plan has hired a consultant to initiate an asset allocation study, a move that could potentially lead to changes at the plan. Calls to Steve Moskun, the plan's cash and investments manager, were...

St. Louis Appoints New Int'l Mgr.
December 13, 2004... The roughly $300 million St. Louis County Retirement System has hired Sanderson Asset Management to oversee a new international value equity account, said Glenn Pearl, plan CFO. The manager, which was hired at the beginning of the month,...

CalPERS Settles Transparency Suit.
December 13, 2004... The California Public Employees' Retirement System reached a settlement with the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) regarding the release of information about the fees paid to its private equity and venture capital managers, the plan...

Milwaukee Trustees May Face Ethics Probe.
December 13, 2004... Officials in Milwaukee County are investigating possible expense account abuses by several former pension board members, said John Carter, chairman of the county's Ethics Board. "It was brought to our attention at a November meeting that...

Iowa Endowment to Look at SRIs.
December 13, 2004... The $187 million endowment fund of the University of Iowa will begin reviewing opportunities in socially responsible investment (SRIs) vehicles at the behest of students enrolled at the college, said Cynthia Bartels, director of treasury...

Corporations Build Relationships with Cash Management Providers.
December 13, 2004... U.S. companies are pleased with their cash management providers, a recent report by Greenwich Associates concludes. The report, "U.S. Cash Management: Rewarding Relationships," indicates that 82% of the companies participating in the study...

House Weighs New Hybrid Retirement Plan: New Structure Promises the Best of Both DB, DC Worlds.
December 13, 2004... A bill introduced in the House of Representatives would permit employers to offer a hybrid defined benefit plan and defined contribution plan with employees receiving a single statement. The new type of investment vehicle, dubbed a "DB(k),"...

Odds & Ends.
December 13, 2004... *Republican Assemblyman Keith Richman introduced a bill that would allow new public employees in the state of California to participate in 401(k) plans instead of the state's current defined-benefit pension system. This bill would create the...

Clarification.
December 13, 2004... An item appearing in the Odds & Ends section of IMW"s Nov. 29 issue, incorrectly implies that Peter Coster is no longer the president of Mercer, Inc. Coster has stepped down from the Marsh & McClennan Co. board, but still retains his...

Spitzer Looks Into Consulting Arm of Morningstar.
December 20, 2004... New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer has now targeted consultant Morningstar Associates in a probe to gain information regarding the investment consulting services the firm provides to plan sponsors. The Chicago-based firm is a...

N.H. Plots Private Equity Search in New Year.
December 20, 2004... The $4.5 billion New Hampshire Retirement System may initiate a search for a private equity manager sometime in March, said Ed Theobald, chairman of the plan's board of trustees. "This will be an addition to what we already have. We just...

Michigan Plan to Probe Real Estate.
December 20, 2004... The roughly $400 million City of Dearborn Retirement System may be gearing up to make real estate investments in the near future. Don Cundy, plan administrator, confirmed that the plan was looking at real estate investing, but declined to...

Survey: Small-Cap Investors Attracted to Growth.
December 20, 2004... Stocks-particularly growth investments-are expected to fare far better than bonds in 2005, according to a Russell Investment Group poll of small-cap investment officers. The survey was produced for Russell's quarterly Investment Manager...

Haverhill Eyes Large-Cap Growth, Bonds.
December 20, 2004... The $145 million Haverhill Retirement System has launched a search for a manager to oversee a $9 million large-cap growth account. Details of the search were scant, as calls to Kathleen Gallant, plan administrator, were referred to Jeff...

Bradford & Marzec Vet Joins Transamerica.
December 20, 2004... David Hogan, former director of marketing at Bradford & Marzec, has joined Transamerica Investment Management as its new VP of institutional fixed-income sales. Hogan, who had been with Bradford & Marzec for six years prior to his...

Jacksonville Hunts for Financial Pro.
December 20, 2004... The City of Jacksonville has initiated a search for a director of finance-a position that would place the appointed candidate at the helm of the pension board. It was unclear whether the search was orchestrated to potentially replace...

Stanfield Snags JPMorgan Pro.
December 20, 2004... James Conzelman, 17-year veteran and former head of client services at JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management, has joined Stanfield Capital Partners as managing director. Conzelman, who joined Stanfield at the beginning of December, left...

Pennsylvania Muni Eyes Real Estate.
December 20, 2004... The $1.1 billion Pennsylvania Municipal Retirement System has issued an RFP for a real estate manager to oversee approximately $50 million. Reasons for the search could not be determined, as calls to James Allen, corporate secretary were...

Fortis Appoints New Senior PM.
December 20, 2004... Boston-based money manager, Fortis Investments, has appointed Mark Stoeckle as a senior portfolio manager for the firm's domestic small- and mid-cap strategies. Stoeckle, who was most recently head of an equity hedge fund firm-646...

ISS Teams with Index Provider to Spotlight Governance.
December 20, 2004... The Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) has embarked on a joint venture with the FTSE Group to release the FTSE ISS Corporate Govern- ance Index Series, the firms announced last week. ISS specializes in proxy voting and corporate...

Fidelity Runs Afoul of Regulators Over Gifts: Cozy Relationships Among Traders Questioned.
December 20, 2004... Regulators may have found a chink in the armor of Fidelity Investments as it faces an enforcement investigation over whether its traders received lavish gifts and special favors from brokerages as incentives to trade with them. The...

Odds & Ends.
December 20, 2004... *The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) has slightly changed its asset allocation mix, the fund said last week. The revision entails a 1% increase in both domestic and international equity for the plan sponsor. CalPERS...