Passport Capital has won a $30 million long/short equity mandate from California’s San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association. The San Francisco firm, founded by John Burbank, will manage the $5 billion pension fund’s capital in a separate account that will mirror its Global Strategy fund, which was up 4.79% this year through May. Passport managed $3 billion as of July 1, up from $2.37 billion on January 1.
John Burbank
Passport is one of two recent hedge fund investments made by San Bernardino. The pension also selected hedge fund manager Tradewinds Global Investors, a subsidiary of Nuveen Investments, to manage another $30 million long/short separate account.
The pension fund’s board approved the new mandates at an August 9 meeting.
The investments complete the pension’s search for long/short managers, which began last year. San Bernardino hired Clough Capital Partners, CastleRock Partners and Select Equity Group earlier this year for its long/short portfolio, and wanted to place money with more managers to better diversify the portfolio, said Tim Barrett, the executive director and chief investment officer for the pension.
San Bernardino has allocated a total of $150 million to long/short managers, but that allocation may grow over time, Barrett says.
Long/short funds will fall into the pension’s global equity allocation. The pension system is using long-only, volatility-based and hedged-equity strategies to fill this portfolio, with long/short falling within the hedged-equity section.
Anastasia Donde
(PHOTO: DOUG GOODMAN)
