Pension / Investment Management

Emerging Managers Program

The New York City Retirement Systems and the Comptroller’s Office are dedicated to identifying and investing with top performing fund managers that demonstrate exceptional potential and are committed to diversity in their investment decision-making process, ownership structure, compensation, and profit-sharing policies.

The Emerging Manager Program seeks to foster the growth and development of successful managers with whom the Systems invest, including Minority- and Women-owned Business Enterprise (M/WBE) fund managers that typically do not have access to large institutional investors.

The Emerging Manager Program seeks managers that meet the following minimum criteria:

• Significantly experienced investors that can generate competitive risk-adjusted returns and manage funds which may have shorter track records than more established managers.
• Institutional quality operations with established front/back office, systems and risk management including reputable administrators, auditors and an independent third-party pricing source where appropriate.
• Broad institutional capital base with significant General Partner investment.

The Emerging Manager program seeks investment managers across multiple asset classes in which the New York City Retirement Systems invests. Specific criteria for each asset class are as follows:

Public Markets: Equity & Fixed Income

The Public Markets Emerging Managers Program charges Fund of Funds/Emerging Managers with selecting a portfolio of sub-managers, monitoring them on a regular basis, and providing performance measurement and analysis on at least a quarterly basis. Successful sub-managers may be “graduated” to direct mandates with the Systems subject to procurement rules.

Criteria:

• Sub-managers are generally limited to under $2 billion of firm-wide assets under management at time of initial funding.
• The Fund of Funds are measured against standard benchmarks, such as the Barclays Aggregate, Russell 2000 and MSCI EAFE indexes, and are expected to outperform the benchmarks net of fees.

Private Equity

The Private Equity Emerging Managers Program seeks to invest in experienced and proven fund managers with a differentiated investment strategy that demonstrates the ability to generate superior risk-adjusted returns.

Criteria:

• Primarily Funds I – III, raising up to $1 billion with a broad institutional investor base.
• Buyout, growth equity, and distressed/special situations investment strategies.
• Firms with institutional-quality middle and back offices and strong operational controls (reputable auditor, fund administrator and employment of an independent third party valuation firm, where appropriate)

Real Estate

The Real Estate Emerging Managers Program seeks to invest with top tier managers that have generated strong risk-adjusted returns while diversifying the real estate portfolio with small and emerging managers.

Criteria:

• Firms with less than $2 billion in total assets under management.
• Currently raising first, second, or third institutional real estate fund.
• Currently targeting fund size of $500 million or less.

Opportunistic Fixed Income

The Opportunistic Fixed Income Emerging Managers Program seeks to enhance the risk-adjusted return of pension assets through long-biased, alternative credit investment strategies such as direct lending, special situations, distressed, commercial real estate debt and structured credit.

Criteria:

• Firms that are currently fundraising between $500 million and $2 billion.
• Have a broad institutional investor base.
• Employ complementary strategies to the OFI portfolio.

Hedge Funds

The Hedge Fund Emerging Manager Program invests in globally-active strategies that look to produce returns between that of public equities and fixed income markets over a full market cycle (typically 5-7 years) while maintaining low correlation to the global public equity markets.

Criteria:

• Firms with less than $1 billion in assets under management and/or less than a 3-year track record at time of funding.
• Discretionary and systematic macro, commodities, credit, long/short equity, event driven, tactical trading, relative value strategies and focus on low net exposure funds.

Managers are encouraged to contact the appropriate investment staff point person as well as Asset Class Head in the Comptroller’s Bureau of Asset Management and provide marketing materials, a PPM, and a short overview of the fund and investment opportunity. Contact information for each asset class can be found here.

Managers are also welcome to contact the appropriate consultant for their relevant asset class. Each of the Systems generally have different consultants for different asset classes. The consultants and the New York City Retirement Systems that they serve are listed below for each asset class.

M/WBE Broker Dealer Program