New York selects BofA to invest $200m

The $153bn pension allocated $200m to Bank of America for investments with emerging managers, and $350m to minority-owned Parish Capital as part of its emerging private equity managers programme.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund has selected Bank of America to invest $200 million with emerging private equity managers, and will allocate $350 million to Parish Capital Advisors.

The pension, which lost half of its value last year and stands at $153 billion, made the allocations as part of its emerging manager private equity programme, which was started in 2005. The programme targets funds with assets under management below $750 million, as well as funds owned by women and minorities.

The emerging managers fund has more than $400 million invested through the programme, and the pension is expanding the programme by $1 billion in three years, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the sole trustee of the fund, said in a statement. 

Parish Capital will use $250 million of the pension’s allocation for co-investment opportunities and $100 million for fund investments. Bank of America has $4.7 billion under management as part of its private equity business, which is split into three groups: a fund of funds; a private equity and mezzanine lending unit and a direct private equity investment unit.

Parish was launched in 2003 by James Mason, Wendell McCain and Charles Merritt. The firm added David Jeffrey in 2006 to head its London office. Parish, which does fund of funds, director and secondaries investments, has an investor base that includes pensions, endowments, foundations and family offices. The firm, which has $1 billion under management, declined to comment for the article, and no information was available about the firm’s funds.

The pension’s actual allocation to private equity hit 8.3 percent last October, in excess of the fund’s 8 percent target. DiNapoli has been a strong proponent of alternative investments, urging regulators to lift the 25 percent cap on the pension’s alternatives allocation.