California Pension Fund Taps Rampart for Option Strategy
December 6, 2010 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Rampart Investment Management, an asset management firm specializing in option strategies, says it has signed an agreement with the Santa Barbara County Employees’ Retirement System (SBCERS) to manage an option strategy.
According to the announcement, the approximately $2 billion public employee retirement system hired Boston-based Rampart to manage that strategy using the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) S&P 500 BuyWrite Index (BXM) investment approach.
The assignment began on October 1, 2010. According to a press release, Rampart was the first licensee of CBOE’s BXM strategy, which helps institutions increase the utilization of their equity assets by monetizing the volatility of those assets, creating a new income stream from selling index call options.
“Rampart’s implementation of the BXM is a passive, total return strategy that uses a systematic, disciplined monthly option trading cycle,” said Ronald M. Egalka, Rampart president and chief executive officer. “Our capacity to assist investors by monetizing stock and market volatility to their benefit has resulted in increased interest from financial institutions and public plans like SBCERS that are employing options as a dynamic investment strategy.”
With more than $1 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2010, Rampart says its investment solutions can add value to a broad spectrum of U.S. and international financial service companies, tax exempt institutional clients, mutual funds, brokerage firms, insurance companies, asset managers, high net worth individuals.