The men responsible for running hedge funds at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and Dutch giant PGGM have taken jobs at new firms as their pensions decided to dump their sector allocations.
Ed Robertiello, who ran absolute return strategies for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), has joined a private fund management firm three months after the pension announced the closure of his programme.
In 2013, the pair spoke on a panel discussing institutional investors bypassing funds-of-hedge funds to go direct.He joined New Jersey-based Chatham Asset Management on January 1, according to Bloomberg, which cited an investor letter announcing his arrival. The move sends him back to the private sector after joining CalPERS from Russell Investments in 2012.
According to a filing made by the New Jersey State Investment Council—which was considering investing $300 million in Chatham’s High Yield Separate Account—“Chatham has a track record of returning capital to investors when they do not have an attractive opportunity set, as they did in 2005, 2006 when they returned $800 million to investors”.
Last year the company announced that it and a partner had acquired American Media, which publishes National Enquirer, OK!, and Men’s Fitness.
Separately, Jan Soerensen, the head of hedge funds at PGGM, which manages around €180 billion ($212 billion) in assets on behalf of healthcare worker pension fund PFZW, left his role in July after more than four and a half years, CIO can reveal. PFZW announced on Friday that it had been winding down its hedge fund allocation over the last year, citing complexity, costs, and sustainability issues.
Soerensen has launched a firm in his native Denmark, according to LinkedIn. Tang Financial, of which Soerensen is the CEO, is a professional or management consulting firm, according to Danish business pages. It is understood that Soerensen has been assisting the Dutch pension manager wind down its hedge fund portfolio.
Robertiello and Soerensen shared a platform in 2013 at a Milken Institute conference. The pair spoke on a panel discussing the trend by institutional investors to bypass funds-of-hedge funds and go direct to investment managers.
CalPERS CIO Ted Eliopoulos told Bloomberg that the pension thanked Robertiello and wished him the best for the future.
PGGM confirmed Soerensen’s departure.
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