Chicago Teachers’ Pension Embraces Manger Diversity As One-Third of Assets With Minority Firms

The Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund (CTPF) released data on Tuesday revealing the fund’s sizeable investments with MWDBE (Minority, Women and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise) investment firms.

The fund has invested $3.6 billion, or 33.4 percent of its total assets, with such firms.

More from a CTPF release:

As part of two fiscal year-end reports, the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund (CTPF) today announced that it invested more than $3.6 billion in assets or approximately one-third of total fund assets with Minority, Women and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (MWDBE) firms, a 2 percent increase over fiscal year 2013 investments. The fund’s work was highlighted during October testimony at an Illinois Senate Committee hearing on Pensions and Investments and in a December report provided to the Illinois Governor’s office.

[…]

A breakdown of assets by status as of June 30, 2014, includes $1.44 billion managed by women-owned firms; $1.29 billion managed by African American-owned firms; $823.7 million managed by Latino-owned firms; $54.2 million managed by Asian American-owned firms; and $10.8 million managed by Persons with a Disability-owned firms.

Over the past twenty years, CTPF has seen dramatic growth in MWDBE investments. The fund invested 6% of assets in MWDBE-owned funds in 1993. Today the total investment has grown to 33.4%.

[…]

The recently submitted reports are required by a 2009 Illinois law, PA 96-006, encouraging the trustees of public pension funds to use emerging investment managers in managing their system’s assets. The law also encourages funds to take affirmative steps to remove any barriers to the full participation of emerging investment managers in investment opportunities.

The CTPF manages $10.9 billion in assets.

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