23/09/2009 Author: Kapila Gohel

CalPERS redeems $87m from its hedge funds

The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) has made a number of partial redemptions from its hedge funds.
The pension, which has steadily creeped back up to $201bn as at 16 September 2009, redeemed around $87.6m in total from Farallon, Canyon VRF, Tennebaum, Wayzata and Deephaven (STARK Investments) hedge funds in July.
While a spokesperson was unable to confirm whether CalPERS planned to withdraw from the above hedge funds completely, the pension has been steadily withdrawing assets from the managers in the past few months.
CalPERS redeemed fully from Platinum Grove in May, Liberty Square Offshore Partners in April and from Zaxis Institutional Partners in March. As of 1 March 2009, the pension had $5.9bn in 35 hedge funds, including nine international funds of hedge funds (FoHFs). According to the spokesperson, the direct strategies have dwindled to 21, while the FoHFs remain unchanged.
Meanwhile CalPERS’ has also decided to abandon its unofficial beta overlay programme which is managed by the internal trading team at the pension fund, part of an industry wide trend that has signalled the demise of portable alpha.