LACERA, Alaska Boards Signal Manager and Allocation Shakeups

LACERA, Alaska Boards Signal Manager and Allocation Shakeups

Two major pension board meetings drove the week's institutional investor headlines, as both the Los Angeles County Employees' Retirement Association (LACERA) and the Alaska Retirement Management Board held multi-day sessions covering manager roster size, asset allocation strategy, and real estate positioning.

At LACERA, CIO Jonathan Grabel told trustees the $93.8B pension probably works with more external managers than it needs, tasking staff to return with data supporting a roster reduction. Grabel tied the case to scale economics, noting that asset allocation rather than manager selection drives the bulk of returns, with concentration data showing the top 10 mandates hold 47% of assets while accounting for just 32% of fees. The review feeds into a rewrite of LACERA's strategic framework due back before the board in November, after trustees also declined to move toward a CalPERS-style total portfolio approach.

The Alaska board, which oversees the $51B state retirement system, voted to hire Principal Real Estate, AEW, and TA Realty for core open-end real estate mandates at $100M each, resetting the core sleeve within the fund's $5B real assets allocation. Trustees declined to add core-plus exposure after an eight-finalist search found the return profiles too development-heavy and leveraged for an evergreen structure. BlackRock's planned wind-down of its core property fund and continued redemptions from the UBS Trumbull Property Fund will free up more than $500M for redeployment, while the fiscal 2027 plan keeps non-core real estate and infrastructure in acquisition mode and continues trimming farmland and timber.

Among other allocator activity, the San Francisco Employees' Retirement System disclosed $415M in new private markets commitments across five funds, approved terminating its BlackRock U.S. Debt Index Fund mandate, and set 2027 pacing plans of about $1.2B for private equity and $500M–$600M annually for real assets. Separately, the Cambridge Retirement System tapped Blackstone for a new 1% infrastructure allocation alongside a renewed mandate for incumbent IFM Investors, and opened a search for value-added real estate managers for a mandate of up to $30M.

On the GP fundraising side, Siguler Guff & Company raised more than $3B for its small buyout strategy, including over $2.3B across commingled vehicles led by Small Buyout Opportunities Fund VI and nearly $700M through separately managed accounts; Toronto-based Georgian launched its seventh flagship growth-equity vehicle with a reported $1B target, following a shortfall on its $892M predecessor and a $100M strategic investment from Australia's Navigator Global Investments in March; and 01 Advisors, the venture firm founded by former Twitter executives Dick Costolo and Adam Bain, is targeting $395M for its fourth flagship fund, matching the size of its 2023-vintage third fund.