MA Pension Fund names Pyramis for International Equity Mandate

April 8, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The Massachusetts public pension fund has tapped Fidelity Investments to manage a $606 million international equity mandate.

Reuters reported that the fund, which has $52 billion in assets, selected Fidelity’s Pyramis Global Advisors Trust Company for the job of international stock picking.    The move follows a late 2005 decision by the Massachusetts fund to pull back $315 million Fidelity had invested in domestic large-cap equities for the fund because the responsible Fidelity manager had left his position (See  MA PRIM Pulls Back $315M from Fidelity Equity Management ).

Now Fidelity’s Cesar Hernandez, whose portfolio includes roughly 250 to 300 names, will be in charge of managing money for the pension fund under the new assignment, Reuters said

Also Hired

The Massachusetts fund also hired London-based asset manager Mondrian to put another $606 million of the fund’s money into international stocks, the news report said. Mondrian and Pyramis received money previously managed by The Boston Company and State Street Global Advisor’s Alpha Select funds that were fired last year, Reuters indicated.

“The addition of Mondrian, an extremely concentrated, deep value manager, in conjunction with Pyramis, a diversified-core manager with very consistent performance in all market cycles, will help create a well-diversified, complementary lineup of managers in space where high-quality active managers are few and far between,” the pension fund’s research staff told trustees in a memo before they voted, Reuters said.

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