By Anastasia Donde
For pension funds looking to shake up their alternative investment portfolios, ditching funds of funds and going direct seems to be the de facto move. But not so for the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board, which says it is instead taking a smarter approach to investing in funds of funds.
The $8.3 billion New Mexico pension is revamping its funds-of-funds allocations, having decided to hire specialized managers that focus on specific strategies instead of investing with a variety of diversified funds. The impetus for the changes? Like many pensions, New Mexico ERB had put money into funds of funds that shut down after 2008.
One such fund was Austin Capital Management, which had invested in the Madoff Ponzi scheme, as the fund of fund's investors discovered in 2009.
New Mexico ERB had also invested in Topiary Fund Management, Deutsche Bank's former funds-of-funds division, which also shut...