New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli announced today that the New York State Common Retirement Fund (Fund) has committed an additional $1.2 billion to its emerging manager program, increasing the total commitment to more than $5 billion. The program is designed to help diversify the Fund’s investments and expand its pool of investors. DiNapoli made the announcement at the Fund’s eighth annual Emerging Manager Conference.
“The emerging manager program increases our access to investment opportunities and broadens the pool of talented investment managers who want to do business with the state pension fund,”said DiNapoli. “The recent $1.2 billion in commitments to the program will help strengthen the Fund’s overall investment strategy on behalf of the more than one million members and beneficiaries of the Retirement System.”
DiNapoli said the commitment included an additional $500 million allocation to Artemis Real Estate Partners for real estate investments, an additional $300 million allocation to Bank of America Merrill Lynch Capital Access Funds for private equity investments and a $400 million commitment to Leading Edge Investment Advisors for a new small capitalization equity investment platform.
The Fund is one of a few public pension funds in the country to establish an emerging manager program in virtually every major asset class including public equity, private equity, hedge funds, real estate and opportunistic strategies. Read more about the emerging manager program.
“Leading Edge Investment Advisors is honored to be selected by the New York State Common Retirement Fund as a partner in identifying and providing opportunity to talented emerging managers,”said Clayton Jue, president and CEO of Leading Edge Investment Advisors. “We commend Comptroller DiNapoli for the Fund’s vision and commitment to utilizing emerging managers to deliver strong diversified sources of investment return to the Fund’s beneficiaries.”
The annual Emerging Manager Conference began in 2006 and is held in Albany every year. Conference attendees meet the Fund’s staff and managing partners for the program and gain insight about the Fund’s operations, investment decisions and monitoring process.
About Leading Edge Investment Advisors (LEIA)
Based in San Francisco and founded in August 2005 as a Manager-of-Managers, Leading Edge Investment Advisors, LLC is an SEC-registered investment advisor, and a minority, employee-owned firm consisting of an experienced and knowledgeable team of professionals committed to the emerging manager arena. Founder Clayton Jue, pioneered the first fund of emerging managers in 1990, and with several seasoned professionals expanded the use of emerging managers across all asset classes. Prior firms included, the team has managed more than 40 emerging manager programs in over 20 years.
About the Common Retirement Fund
New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli is trustee of the $176.8 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, the third largest public pension plan in the United States with more than one million members, retirees and beneficiaries from more than 3,000 state and local government employers. The Fund has a diversified portfolio of public and private equities, fixed income, real estate and alternative instruments and has consistently been ranked as one of the best managed and best funded plans in the nation. Over the past 20 years, 82 percent of the cost of benefit payments has been funded by investment returns. The Fund’s fiscal year ends March 31, 2015.