Deals and People February 6, 2001

CalPERS' Mark Anson on Asset Allocation, Part 1

Few plan sponsors have been as vocal, or as visible, in their commitment to private equity investments as the $170 billion California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), the nation's largest public pension system. Recently PLANSPONSOR's Editor-in-Chief and CEO Charles Ruffel sat down with Mark Anson, CalPERS' Senior Investment Officer for Global Equity, to discuss the current environment and prospects for the future.

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PART I: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

In the first of our exclusive four-part series, Anson sets the record straight on CalPERS’ strategy on hedge fund investment.

Prior reports of an $11 billion allocation were a misrepresentation and misreporting of the facts. So instead of being seen as a positive development – which indeed it is – somehow it has been represented as a ‘pullback.’ Nothing could be further from the truth.

More recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that CalPERS has been turned down by several leading hedge funds and, as a consequence, has been seeking a strategic partner to find such funds. Indeed, we are now looking for such a strategic partner, which I will address shortly, but the idea that we are being ‘turned down’ by hedge funds is a fabrication. We were outraged by that story when it ran. In fact, one of the reasons we are looking for this strategic partner is to act as a gatekeeper for the flood of hedge funds that have contacted us – more than 400, at last count.

To Part Two of this Series