Calpers, the biggest US general public pension prepare, has appointed a Canadian fund manager as its new main investment officer practically 18 months after the abrupt departure of its former CIO.
The $478bn California Public Employees’ Retirement Technique mentioned Nicole Musicco, a non-public marketplaces professional, would get more than the substantial-profile position. Musicco will triumph Dan Bienvenue, who experienced assumed the purpose of interim CIO in August 2020 after Ben Meng resigned from the submit.
Musicco’s appointment arrives as Calpers, which has 2mn users, embarks on strategies to boost exposure to private markets towards a backdrop of anticipated dimming returns from detailed shares. Canada’s pension money have been between the most proactive in the environment in deploying much more of their capital offshore, in the hunt for returns.
As element of a new 4-year program, authorized ahead of Musicco’s appointment, Calpers will raise its allocation to personal fairness by 5 percentage factors to 13 for each cent and change into personal personal debt with an allocation of 5 per cent. At the same time, worldwide fairness exposure will be dialled down from 50 per cent to 42 per cent.
Musicco instructed the Economic Occasions there was a “huge opportunity” for Calpers to “lean more” into direct investing above time, that means the fund’s in-house financial investment professionals will consider a bigger function in deciding on which non-public belongings to allocate money towards. Usually, pension money make investments with private fairness, or other non-public sector supervisors, which can cost important fees for their products and services.
She is the second female to lead the financial investment functions at Calpers. “Nicole’s experience, eyesight and ability as an trader in community and private markets is critical for Calpers,” mentioned Marcie Frost, chief govt.
Musicco is a husband or wife at RedBird Cash, a New York-primarily based investment firm targeted on constructing substantial-advancement companies. She has also held leadership roles at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Strategy, a C$200bn (US$157bn) Canadian pension fund. In 2018, she was recruited to guide the personal markets financial commitment programme at Expense Administration Company of Ontario, a pension asset administration business with extra than C$70bn in assets underneath management.
Musicco was picked from a pool of worldwide and domestic candidates, and will choose on a team of much more than 300 financial commitment personnel when she begins in late March. Calpers had earlier claimed the pandemic slowed its lookup for a replacement for Meng.
Meng stepped down soon after the Bare Capitalism website revealed allegations that he experienced unsuccessful to absolutely comply with the California Reasonable Political Practices Fee in relation to economic disclosure files. At the time, Meng advised the Financial Periods he had disclosed all of his economical holdings in the applicable sort.
