Administration April 6, 2010
State Street Wins $2.1M MA Pension Investment Mandate
April 6, 2010 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - State Street Corp. won two mandates to invest a total of $2.1 billion for Massachusetts’ public pension fund.
Reported by Rebecca Moore
Bloomberg reports that the state’s Pension Reserves Investment Management Board, which oversees retirement funds for public employees and teachers, awarded State Street’s asset-management unit $1.5 billion for non-U.S. investments and $600 million for emerging markets. In an agenda posted by the board, it cited Boston-based State Street’s lower fees and “organizational stability” in making the selection.
Both of the pension board’s mandates are for passive investments that track a market index, the news report said. The larger mandate will increase the fund’s non-U.S. stock holdings overseen by State Street to $3.85 billion. The fund managed $42.2 billion as of February 28.
According to Bloomberg, State Street beat out BlackRock Inc. for each mandate. The pension board said BlackRock’s bid included proposed fees nearly three times State Street’s, and BlackRock “faces significant integration risk from its $13.5 billion acquisition of Barclays Global Investors in December 2009.”