Calpers Completes Sale Of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thai Stks
sg.biz.yahoo.com Wednesday March 12, 2:17 AM By Allison Bisbey Colter Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The California Public Employees Retirement System has completed the sale of stocks in three emerging markets it decided to shun last year on the advice of a consultant.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were excluded from Calpers' investment universe in connection with the pension plan's decision last year to move $1.1 billion of its $1.6 billion of emerging market assets from a passively managed portfolio to three active money managers - AllianceBernstein, Dimensional Fund Advisors and Genesis Asset Managers Ltd.
The $125 billion pension plan also adopted a new policy of investing only in stocks of countries that meet strict criteria for political stability, financial transparency and labor standards.
As a result, Hungary and Poland were added to the list of permissible countries, while Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were deleted.
The Philippines was initially struck from the list of permissible countries as well, but Calpers decided to retain its investments in that country after public officials provided evidence that the economy was solid.
Despite concerns raised by its consultant Wilshire Associates, the pension fund affirmed its decision to remain in the Philippines at a board meeting last month.
Other investable markets include Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Mexico, Peru, Poland, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey.
Calpers is also shunning investments in India, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Columbia, China, Egypt, Pakistan, Russia and Venezuela.
Calpers bought and sold stocks in four tranches over a six-month period from July through December 2002, according to information posted on its Web site this week. A total of $873.2 million of stocks were acquired and $750.1 million of stocks were sold. Another $231.9 million in stocks were transferred from Calpers' internally managed emerging-market index fund to the outside investment managers.
The pension fund didn't disclose how much it bought or sold in individual markets. However, spokesman Brad Pacheco said Calpers' $30 million of Philippine investments were unaffected by the transition. "None of the assets had been sold by the time we changed our policy to include the Philippines," he said.
AllianceBernstein, Dimensional Fund Advisors and Genesis Asset Managers each now manage about $400 million for Calpers.
-By Allison Bisbey Colter, Dow Jones Newswires; allison.bisbey-colter@dowjones.com; 201-938-5298