How to do business with CalSTRS

For any managers hoping to appeal to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the best route is to go direct.

Like most of its peer group, the second-largest public pension fund in the US historically leaned on external managers, specifically via their commingled funds, for exposure to private markets. However, to exercise more control over its portfolio, cut fees and, ultimately, achieve better returns, the $240 billion pension is making a concerted effort to manage more assets internally.

Although CalSTRS has participated in separately managed accounts, co-investments and joint ventures for decades – particularly through its real estate allocation – it has adopted a new portfolio-wide strategy that brings these alternative structures to the forefront. Known as the ‘collaborative model’, this approach calls for the pension to play a more active role in its investments, be it through bespoke club deals, partnerships with other institutions or by acquiring operating companies to act on its behalf.

The collaborative model is equal parts investment thesis and branding tool. CalSTRS believes it can achieve substantial cost savings by keeping assets in-house. Justifiably so – in 2017, it managed 44 percent of its portfolio internally at a cost of $30 million compared with the $1.8 billion it paid external firms in management fees for the other 56 percent. At the same time, it also wants to send a signal to managers large and small, and to other investors, that it is open for business, so long as the arrangement fits its terms.

“This is a vision that we want to execute across the asset classes,” CalSTRS deputy chief investment officer Scott Chan tells sister title PERE. “It’s become the most meaningful implementation platform for CalSTRS and we want to be able to communicate it well to the market, to our potential partners, to our peers, to the [state] legislature, to the [CalSTRS] board and to our clients.”

Led by CIO Christopher Ailman, the CalSTRS investment team identified the collaborative model as a system-wide priority in 2017. The decision came after an internal evaluation found that 97 percent of its non-carried interest expenses were going to outside managers. The following year, Chan was hired away from the University of California Regents where he headed the governing board’s $55 billion global equities portfolio. As second in command at CalSTRS, it is his task to implement the vision. In August, Chan and Mike DiRe, director of real estate, sat down with PERE at CalSTRS’ Sacramento headquarters to discuss the collaborative model, the implementation process and what it means for the pension.

One strategy, many styles

All asset classes, both public and private, will fall under the umbrella of the collaborative model, but CalSTRS will approach each allocation slightly differently. As it builds a more customised infrastructure portfolio, it plans to seek out like-minded institutions to invest alongside. For real estate, it will focus on acquiring operating companies and forming joint ventures with sector specialists. To facilitate more co-investment in private equity, it will empower its staff to make swifter commitments.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all model,” Chan says. “It’d be wrong for us to have a one-size-fits-all strategy where we’d force asset classes that may not be ready to execute different strategies into that mould.”

One of CalSTRS’ biggest gripes with closed-end fund structures is their rigidity. As a limited partner, it has no meaningful say about what assets are acquired, or when they are bought and sold. With flexibility factoring so heavily into the collaborative model, Chan says he is reluctant to weigh it down with such mandates and hard targets.

“It’d be wrong for us to have a one-size-fits-all strategy”

Scott Chan
CalSTRS

On 5 September, CalSTRS’ investment committee rolled out its new strategic asset allocation plan. It calls for a 2 percent increase to both its real assets portfolios: real estate and inflation-sensitive, the latter consisting of infrastructure and inflation-linked securities. Targeting 15 percent and 6 percent, respectively, the committee hopes to get a premium from the two illiquid asset classes. It will offset these increases by shaving 5 percent off its public equities exposure. It will also add 1 percent to its risk mitigating portfolio. Although the collaborative model was considered during the drafting of this new strategy, it was not factored into the expected results. Its annual return target will hold steady at 7 percent.

“We have not included the benefits of better implementation or active management in determining our new strategic asset allocation because we want to be conservative in the return/risk forecasts,” Chan says. “Instead, we’re forecasting ‘beta’ returns, risk and correlations on a very long-term basis and applying the collective wisdom and judgement of the team to come up with a strategic asset allocation.”

Overall, Chan hopes CalSTRS will save between $300 million and $500 million over the next five years. Otherwise, unlike the strict, visible framework of the fund’s strategic asset allocation and its 500-plus benchmarks, this philosophy will largely play out behind the scenes.

“This isn’t a model that is closed,” DiRe says. “It’s not like we’re getting rid of all our manager relationships, or we’re only open to a certain structure going forward. CalSTRS is open for business and we just want to take a more progressive thought toward the way we structure relationships going forward across asset classes.”

CalSTRS’ real estate team has set the standard for the collaborative model. It launched its debut separately managed account in 1987 and joint venture in 2002, according to May meeting documents. In 2007, it purchased its first operating company. As of 31 March, 95 percent of the fund’s core real estate was held in what it considers active structures and it has consistently beaten its benchmark, the NCREIF Open-end Diversified Core Equity index.

‘Partner of choice’

To participate in more direct transactions more frequently, CalSTRS will need to increase its capacity to find, underwrite and execute deals. It plans to beef up its investment team over the next five years, possibly growing the staff from 180 to more than 300. But that would be just the tip of the iceberg, Chan explains.

“For the organisation, it’s a bit like throwing a pebble into a pond and seeing a ripple effect,” he says. “If we’re growing our investment organisation, we’re going to need more legal support, more tech support, more procurement support, et cetera, et cetera. This is an effort where we need to get to a point where we become more and more the partner of choice. And to do that, it’s a whole organisational effort.”

In addition to attracting more talent, CalSTRS also is committed to retaining it. As Chan notes, it would be difficult for partners to throw support behind an organisation with frequent turnover. However, this is easier said than done, as investment professionals who rise through a pension’s ranks often draw the attention of private employers capable of paying higher salaries with better incentives.

Herein lies a central issue for CalSTRS and other public pensions interested in building robust internal investment teams: they must spend on compensation, travel and other expenses to save money in the long run. In the US, where top talent has plenty of options and constituents are wary of government spending, staff pay has proven to be a difficult hurdle to clear. Despite broader constraints on staff pay, DiRe says CalSTRS has been well supported in its efforts to buck the trend. “The board has been very progressive over the years to move in the direction of creating salary structures that work.” Continuing to do so is imperative, Chan says, to building a team worthy of the partnerships it seeks and to keep up the pace in what is an increasingly competitive field. “If we looked at a peer group in APG, GIC, any of the Canadian funds, they have more people, they’re moving faster than we are and they don’t have any of the rules or regulations that we have to work within as a state agency,” he says. “Their only rule is to make money.”

“We need to get to a point where we become more and more the partner of choice. And to do that, it’s a whole organisational effort”

Scott Chan
CalSTRS

The CalSTRS compensation committee is reviewing the system’s pay scales too, according to the fund’s meeting documents. It plans to adopt new salary ranges for investment managers in March 2020 then implement them the following July.

Other pension funds that have pursued direct investment models have set up satellite offices to attract talent and get broader exposure to dealflow. The Teachers’ Retirement System of Ohio, which has had a direct investment programme since the 1980s, has outposts in New York, San Francisco and Atlanta. The Teacher Retirement System of Texas, which has a newer direct investment programme, opened a London office in 2015 and has its eyes on a Singaporean location as well. Although CalSTRS has no plans to branch out beyond Sacramento – where it is adding office space – Chan said it might consider adding secondary locations or opening the door to remote employees.

“We’ve tapped a lot of great talent in this location in Sacramento, but we’ve got to be realistic in thinking about how much talent also resides in San Francisco, LA and other areas,” he says. “We’ve got to be creative in thinking about that, particularly if we think on the investment side that we’ll eventually go from 180 to a little bit over 300.”

Growing trend

Like some other internationally investing institutions, the large US pensions have tilted their focus away from blind pool funds since the global financial crisis. Texas TRS, for instance, rolled out its principal investments programme in 2014 and has already seen tangible results. During that period, its direct investments in energy, natural resources and infrastructure produced a five-year IRR of 14.3 percent compared with 3.6 percent for the equivalent fund portfolio. During a public meeting in July, CIO Jerry Albright attributed the success to a single acquisition – which he did not identify because of the organisation’s privacy non-disclosure rules – that would not have been available through a commingled fund.

Albright said during the meeting: “A lot of that return came off of one transaction … and we made some fantastic money that we wouldn’t have made had we just accepted what the partner brought to us.”

CalSTRS’ cousin, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, is also targeting a more advanced approach to direct investment. It aims to launch a pair of investment companies that would operate independently of the pension. This has become known as the ‘Canadian model’, which refers to retirement systems in Canada that have launched standalone investment arms: Cadillac Fairview by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Oxford Properties Group by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, and Ivanhoé Cambridge by Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

Of the decision to go direct, Eric Plesman, Oxford Properties Group’s executive vice-president of North America, says a lot of factors come into play, including an institution’s size and resources. But “it ultimately comes down to the mandate, the level of control you want to have in your investment strategy and how much capital you need to deploy. It depends, but for us, it’s been essential to the returns we’ve realised to date.”

An example of a pre-existing structure that fits the collaborative model is an infrastructure club deal between CalSTRS and Dutch pension manager APG, which is managed by Argo Infrastructure Partners, a New York-based manager. The two investors chipped in $250 million to the initial venture in 2015, which acquired Cross-Sound Cable, a high voltage direct current transmission system between Connecticut and New York. Last year, both committed an additional $300 million. “This more direct style of investing not just saves fees, but puts us in a position to be more nimble in the marketplace,” DiRe says.

Managing the managers

As more large investors opt for direct approaches, managers are faced with a decision: accept reduced fee revenue or look for capital elsewhere. Although some firms are unwilling to adapt to these more collaborative approaches, many have been happy to accommodate. “It’s a little bit bifurcated for managers,” Walter Stackler, managing partner of Shelter Rock Capital Advisors, says. “Some fully discretionary fund managers are happy with what they have and don’t want to change to a so-called collaborative, non-discretionary model. But it works well for the smaller managers as well as larger managers looking to expand their business into new product lines.”

Several top managers, including those that have executed non-fund investments with CalSTRS either declined to comment, or were not available.

A managing director of another capital advisory firm who declined to be named says he has seen an influx of work in non-fund structures. Along with the desire to cut fees, many investors, including CalSTRS, want to hold on to stable, income-producing assets longer than most closed-end fund structures allow. Others want the ability to say yes or no to certain acquisitions.

Some of these arrangements can even be favourable to managers, the managing director says: “The manager may prefer a smaller team at the limited partner level because they don’t have to deal with a larger team of people micromanaging them and poking holes in their assumptions as much.”

Chan says established managers have been more accommodating of the collaborative model than their smaller contemporaries. Upstart managers hoping to take on discretionary capital, meanwhile, would do well to prove their worth with more collaborative approaches, DiRe says: “It’s still managing money. It’s still managing strategies.”