Hawaii Employees seeks equity managers to run up to $1.2 billion

by Kevin Olsen, P&I Online, April 17, 2012

Hawaii Employees' Retirement System, Honolulu, is searching for up to three domestic large-cap equity managers to run a total of about $1.2 billion, according to sources.

The $10.7 billion retirement system is looking for two managers to run about $300 million each in active growth and one manager to run about $600 million in passive growth or value. The final size of each portfolio could vary, according to RFIs posted on Pension Consulting Alliance's website.

The RFIs refer only to a public pension fund client in Hawaii. Neither Rod June, chief investment officer, nor Neil Rue, PCA managing director, would confirm it is the Hawaii Employees' Retirement System.

Mr. June said in a telephone interview in February that the retirement system would issue RFPs within a few months. He said then that the passive mandate would be funded from the termination of Goldman Sachs' $593 million active-large cap mandate. The firm was terminated in October and the assets were parked in a Mellon Capital Management large-cap growth index fund.

At that time, Mr. June also said the active search would be partially funded from the current $460 million active large-cap portfolio run by Atalanta Sosnoff Capital, which is on the retirement system's watchlist for performance. Atalanta is invited to rebid. The rest of the funding was not specified.

The RFIs are available on PCA's website.

Proposals are due May 7. A hiring date was not specified.