The Arkansas Teacher Retirement System's trustees on Monday authorized the investment of $200 million in a global stock market fund managed by New York-based investment manager Allianz Global Investors U.S.
The investment will be in the AllianzGI Structured Alpha Global Equity 350 fund.
The system already had money in other Allianz funds -- about $580 million in AllianzGI Structured Alpha Global Equity 500 and about $120 million in AllianzGI Structured Alpha U.S. Equity 250 -- as of July 31, the system's staff said in a written report to the trustees. The new investment in the 350 fund will be "a nice complement" to the 500 fund, the report said.
In addition, the system will invest about $300 million more in New York-based BlackRock Inc.'s BlackRock MSCI ACWI IMI Index Fund A, which serves as the system's primary source of monthly liquidity needs and requires additional funding from time to time, system Executive Director George Hopkins said after the trustees' meeting. The system already has nearly $600 million invested in that fund, he said.
The new investments are being financed largely through a reallocation of existing assets, Hopkins said.
The Teacher Retirement System is state government's largest retirement system with more than 100,000 working and retired members.
In fiscal 2016, which ended June 30, the system's investments dropped in value by $572 million, to $14.4 billion.
In the first two months of the current fiscal year, the system's investments bounced back up about $360 million to $14.76 billion, according to a preliminary report by Chicago investment consultant Aon Hewitt. The report doesn't factor in changes in the values of the system's more than $3 billion worth of real estate, timber, agriculture, infrastructure and private equity investments that aren't available yet.
Hopkins estimated Monday that the system's investments are valued at more than $15 billion.
School districts and other system employers paid $408.6 million into the system in fiscal 2016, while their employees contributed $128.6 million, according to Hopkins.
In fiscal 2015, the system included 68,945 working members with an average age of 44.6 years, average service of 10.3 years and an average salary of $36,717, the system actuaries reported last year. The system also included 3,974 other working members in the deferred retirement plan with a total payroll of $246 million -- an average of about $61,902 -- in fiscal 2015.
The system had 40,748 retired members who were paid retirement benefits totaling $917 million -- an average benefit of about $22,504 -- in fiscal 2015, the actuarial firm said.
Metro on 10/04/2016