NYC Pensions Increasing Investment in Hedge Funds

Date: Friday, October 14, 2011
Author: Ricardo Kaulessar, HedgeFund.net

New York City pension funds are planning to increase their hedge fund investment up to $4 billion in coming years.

The city’s comptroller John Liu said that at an event Wednesday hosted by the Association of Asian American Investment Managers in Washington D.C.

The $119.9 billon municipal pension system, which consists of five pension funds, has currently $140 million invested in its fledging hedge fund portfolio, overseen by veteran hedge fund executive Seema Hingorani.

Liu said the goal of his office is to get up to 5% of each pension fund’s portfolio invested in hedge funds to get to the $4 billion target. He cited that last spring, three of the funds made a combined commitment of $450 million to hedge fund-of-funds manager Permal Group, including the police pension fund making its first-ever hedge fund investment of $23.1 million.

“Our funds are exploring innovative ways to produce better returns while seeking to reduce our overall volatility,” Liu said.