Bloomberg – Massachusetts will cut investments in hedge funds after its public pension plan lost a record 24 percent on all assets in the fiscal year ended June 30.

The state pension plan’s board of trustees voted today to lower the amount of money invested in hedge funds to 8 percent, or about $3 billion of the $37.7 billion it oversaw at the end of June, from 12 percent, which is about $4.5 billion. The vote reversed a five-year effort by the pension system to boost returns by expanding such alternative investments.

”We all have to understand we’re making a bet on what assets will do well,” said state Treasurer Timothy Cahill, chairman of Massachusetts’s pension reserve investment management board. “Ultimately, we don’t make decisions based on the short-term, but we get measured on the short-term.”

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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – The Swedish state pension platform, PPM, is including Salus Alpha funds in their premium pension portfolio with immediate effect. The Salus Alpha funds that were chosen are UCITS III compliant, and meet the strict requirements regarding transparency, daily liquidity and adequate administration procedures set up for the Premium Pension Authority.

By launching the first UCITS III fund that tracks a hedge fund index in September 2007, Salus Alpha paved the way for hedge funds as an optimal portfolio component for retirement investment, by adding multi-manager alternative investment products, the returns can be increased while decreasing the risk.

The Swedish pension system is divided in three parts; income pension, guaranteed pension and premium pension. For the premium pension the pension saver has a number of funds to choose from. Every pension saver can decide in which fund and what amount of money he wants to invest. At the moment the Premium Pension Authority’s fund holdings of 5.8 million pension savers are valued at a total of 27.5 Billion Euro ($36.7 billion).

By including these funds in the portfolio the Swedish Premium Pension Authority confirmed the market leadership of Salus Alpha in the regulated alternative investment sector.

Alex Akesson

Tags: accredited-investors, administration procedures, alternative investment, amount-of-money, hedge-fund-index, hedgeco, investment sector, investment-products, liquidity, market leadership, optimal portfolio, palm-beach, pension system, retirement investment, state pension, strict requirements, swedish state, ucits-iii