Bloomberg – Public pension funds in the U.S. are increasing bets on high-risk hedge funds and real estate in an attempt to fill deficits in retirement plans and make up for their worst performance in six years.

New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is asking lawmakers to increase a cap limiting the amount of so- called alternative investments in the state’s Common Retirement Fund, the third-biggest U.S. public pension at $153.9 billion. South Carolina’s retirement system adopted a plan in February to invest as much as 45 percent of its $29 billion in hedge funds, private equity, real estate and other alternatives, from nothing 18 months ago.

“We need some more flexibility,” DiNapoli said at an Aug. 4 press conference in Albany. The Common Retirement Fund, whose 2.6 percent gain in the year ended March 31 was its worst since 2003, is authorized to invest as much as a quarter of its assets in alternative investments. DiNapoli declined to say how much he wants the limit increased. The fund doesn’t have a deficit.

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FINalternatives- An Illinois pension fund official caught up in the trial of a prominent supporter of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may be joining a new hedge fund.

Jon Bauman, executive director of the $38.7 billion Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois, is mulling a departure to join Abraham Lincoln Alternative Investments, which is set to launch its first fund of hedge funds in August. But Bauman sounds far from certain he’ll be leaving TRS, and the pension fund says he’ll be staying put for at least another year.

“The long and short of it is, I’m not ready to pull the trigger yet,” Bauman told Crain’s Chicago Business. “There are considerations on both the TRS and Abraham Lincoln sides of the situation that need to be worked out before I would resign this position and make the move over.”

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