14/04/2010 Author: Shannon Hawthorne

Irish national pension fund names Aksia as FoHF consultant

The $30.3bn Irish National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF) has hired New York-based advisory firm Aksia as a specialist fund of hedge funds (FoHFs) consultant as it prepares to make its first ever investment into the hedge fund space.

The pension fund is set to allocate as much as $682m (€500m) to a FoHF portfolio, which will form part of overall absolute return allocation that aims to ‘provide a return stream that is uncorrelated to or has low correlation with the NPRF’s other assets’, according to the original tender which was issued in January.

According to a spokesperson from the fund, the selection process focused on four main criteria: project research and analysis, project team, due diligence process and fees.

As the fund’s specialist FoHF consultant, Aksia will be expected to work in conjunction with the Irish National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) – which will be responsible for the ongoing monitoring of the portfolio – to devise the best structure for the FoHF allocation as well as providing advice on the various underlying hedge fund strategies.

The NPRF  was originally established in April 2001 with the aim of meeting the rising costs of Ireland's social welfare and public service pensions which are expected to increase substantially from 2025 onwards due to the ageing of the population.