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54
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years building partnerships with US public plans
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United States, Institutional
Change
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116
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US public plan clients
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70%
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of top 20 US public plans partner with us
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USD 43.8 B
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US public plan assets entrusted to us
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How we work with public plans
Researchers
We put ourselves in plan sponsors' shoes and conduct timely, relevant asset allocation analysis.
Allocators
We draw on a wide range of investments, including equity, fixed income, real asset, liquid alternative, private, and opportunistic strategies.
Portfolio managers
We serve as a fiduciary for strategies in every asset class, including custom solutions to client objectives.
Strategic partners
We collaborate with plan sponsors on their goals across their organization.
Meet our Public Plan experts
Adam Berger, CFA
Head of Multi-Asset Strategy
Our public plan research is led by Adam Berger, head of Multi-Asset Strategy. He develops research from an allocator’s perspective, advises clients and prospects on a range of investment policy and governance issues, and serves as the portfolio manager for bespoke multi-manager investment solutions. In this role, he meets regularly with plans sponsors and shares his latest thinking in his quarterly Top of Mind webcast, as well as a wide range of articles and white papers. Click here to learn more about his research.
Amy Morse, CFA
Director of Pension Strategies and Relationship Manager
As director of Pension Strategies, Amy is responsible for identifying, sharing, and acting on major trends in the pension marketplace. She works closely with various groups across Wellington to ensure that the firm is positioned to be a go-to resource and provide solutions to public DB plans. Amy also serves as a relationship manager for our public DB plan clients, helping to bring to bear our full range of resources and services on their behalf. These services include assisting with long-term investment strategy and policy issues, evaluating portfolio risks and performance, and ensuring compliance with policy guidelines and applicable regulations.
Our top 10 ideas for public pensions in 2024
Adam and Amy offer a proposed priority list for 2024 based on recent conversations with public plans.
- Equity ideas include active extension (130/30) strategies, portable alpha strategies, and lower-risk active strategies in place of passive.
- Fixed income portfolios might benefit from more dynamism and/or a broader opportunity set.
- Assess the inflation sensitivity of your overall portfolio.
- Consider additional real asset exposure as a separate allocation or as a tilt within equities/fixed income/alternatives.
- Hedge funds could serve as a fixed income complement (read our research).
- Absolute-return-oriented fixed income strategies may diversify better than index-based strategies.
- Re-underwrite core private equity exposures for today’s environment.
- Review real estate and infrastructure portfolios, especially where heavily levered.
- Consider any potential impact on hedge funds, although we believe it will be minimal.
- Some long-running trends could run for another year or reverse sharply.
- Invest time in governance to increase the likelihood of good decision making.
- Consider opportunistic and “drawdown” strategies in case of a liquidity crisis.
- Read up on ideas for a late-cycle environment.
- How can tools and resources help your team and portfolio?
- What is the investment opportunity?
- Our colleagues are thinking about the economic and bond market impact of AI.
- Consider one or two changes that will have the biggest impact (perhaps from the list above).
- Implement a “reference portfolio” benchmark.
Research spotlight: Stepping stone ideas
Our public plan research agenda includes ideas aimed at helping plans close the gap between high return targets and low expected market returns. This includes “stepping stones” — incremental changes that can potentially improve returns without significantly increasing risk, such as:
- Adding exposure to inflation-sensitive assets and strategies
- Taking advantage of thematic and opportunistic investments
- Allocating to fixed income complements, such as private credit and absolute return/total return hedge funds
To learn more about the latest set of "stepping stone" ideas, read the white paper or watch the video.
Check out ADAM'S latest Insights
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Insights Posts
Top of Mind: The allocator’s checklist for 2024 and beyond
Head of Multi-Asset Strategy Adam Berger offers near- and longer-term ideas for allocators, including thoughts on areas where capital is scarce, alternatives may be attractive, and risks may bear watching.
Article
2025-01-31
Learning to love (or live with) a late-cycle environment
Are we actually in a late-cycle environment and, if so, how should allocators respond? Head of Multi-Asset Strategy Adam Berger offers guidance, including on portfolio positioning, big cycle bets, and security selection.
Article
2024-12-31
Embracing uncertainty: Three alternatives ideas for a macro-driven world
Even as investors wrestle with the economic unknowns heading into 2024, Multi-Asset Strategists Nick Samouilhan and Adam Berger see opportunities to put alternative investments to work.
Article
2024-12-31
Embracing uncertainty: Three alternatives ideas for a macro-driven world
Even as investors wrestle with the economic unknowns heading into 2024, Multi-Asset Strategists Nick Samouilhan and Adam Berger see opportunities to put alternative investments to work.
Article
2024-12-31
Time for a new playbook on bonds
Is it time to add to fixed income allocations? Multi-Asset Strategist Adam Berger and Fixed Income Strategist Amar Reganti offer their views, as well as thoughts on specific areas of opportunity.
Article
2024-05-31
EM equities: Can they prove the doubters wrong?
Multi-Asset Strategist Adam Berger offers six reasons that EM equity performance could be much more compelling in the decade ahead, from attractive valuations to economic tailwinds to mean reversion in the US dollar.
Article
2024-05-31
The churning tides of portfolio liquidity: How to avoid being left high and dry
Markets have sent asset owners some strong reminders of the need to think about liquidity risk across a portfolio and to plan for uncertainty. To help, Multi-Asset Strategist Adam Berger proposes a framework based on the intended uses and sources of liquidity.
Article
2024-02-29
EM evolution: New paths in equity portfolio construction
Multi-Asset Strategist Adam Berger offers a framework for structuring EM equity portfolios, with a focus on "EM 3.0" — differentiated active strategies that have less reference to cap-weighted benchmarks and may be more diversifying in a portfolio.
Whitepaper
2024-01-31
The denominator effect: Thoughts on the rise in private equity allocations
The sharp drop in public markets has left many asset owners with above-target exposure to private assets, raising a number of governance questions. Multi-Asset Strategist Adam Berger considers the likely responses and their potential pros and cons.
Article
2024-02-29
Pivot points: Five portfolio positioning ideas for the new market regime
Multi-Asset Strategist Adam Berger looks at five ways in which the world may be very different in the coming decade and how they could influence the next wave of investment winners.
Article
2023-12-31
Opportunity in disguise: Why bad news may be good for alternatives in 2023
Multi-Asset Strategists Nick Samouilhan and Adam Berger explain how alternative investments may help allocators make tailwinds out of macro and market headwinds in the year ahead.
Article
2023-12-31
Adding thematic equity investments to a multi-asset portfolio: An allocator’s handbook
Thematic investing may add a powerful return engine to portfolios, but allocators sometimes struggle with implementation decisions. Members of our Investment Strategy Team offer a framework for thinking about allocation size, strategy selection, and performance evaluation.
Whitepaper
2024-01-31
URL References
Related Insights
Key capabilities
Alternatives
We leverage in-depth research, specialized teams, and our firm’s scale and resources to develop alternative investment solutions to clients’ evolving needs — including a broad range of hedge funds and private investment strategies.
Equity
Our actively managed equity approaches span disciplines, geographies, industries, market capitalizations, and styles in order to meet our clients’ objectives.
Fixed income
From broad market solutions to strategies based on specific duration, geographic, or sector parameters, we have the capabilities to help meet our clients’ needs.
Private equity
Our private equity teams offer differentiated solutions across sectors by drawing on their backgrounds as entrepreneurs, investors, scientists and more, and collaborating with our public market experts to harness insights from all company growth stages.
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- Director of Pension Strategies and Relationship Manager
Let’s talk public plan strategy
To learn more about how we can help public plans pursue their investment objectives, please contact us.
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