23/06/2010 Author: Kapila Gohel

San Diego pension fund adds two BlackRock funds

The investment board for the $7bn San Diego County Retirement Association (SDCERA) approved investments in two of BlackRock’s global macro strategies last week, as it refreshes its hedge fund portfolio.

SDCERA’s outsourced CIO Integrity Capital, headed by Lee Partridge along with the pension’s internal assistant CIO Lisa Needle, recommended a total commitment of $150m to BlackRock’s funds.

Partridge stated during the meeting that the new investments will be part of the ‘asset allocator’ strategy bucket which includes global macro and CTA strategies. The allocation will be split $115m to the BlackRock Global Ascent Fund (GAF) and $35m to the BlackRock Emerging Markets Macro Fund (EMMF).

SDCERA’s asset allocator bucket includes hedge funds Brevan Howard, Graham and Bridgewater. Partridge revealed his plans to overhaul SDCERA’s hedge fund portfolio exclusively to HFMWeek in March this year.

As part of the move, the pension is moving out of credit and multi-strategy hedge fund investments and creating the aforementioned ‘asset allocator’ portfolio focusing on global macro/CTA funds as well as bottom-up market neutral strategies, which Partridge described as “‘pure play’ strategies,” saying, “in my opinion, it’s what hedge funds should be.”  

SDCERA had previously invested in Global Ascent through BGI’s Multi-Strategy Fund, which was terminated when the pension wound down its Alpha engine following the resignation of David Deutsche, SDCERA’s former CIO.
During the meeting, BlackRock MD Kevin O’Donnell reassured the board that the investors in these strategies are all institutional investors, such as endowments, foundations, and pension plans, and they do not have a retail element to them.