The Oregon Investment Council is planning to hire three new managers in a newly-defined alternatives asset class, seeking to bolster its investment in areas like infrastructure and real assets.

The council, which oversees $95.5bn in assets and plans to nearly double its investment staff over the next two years, has separated private equity and real estate out of its alternatives portfolio. The fund wants to limit the asset class to investments that offer greater investment diversity and are less correlated with broader market.

The new alternatives class, which is underweight a 12.5% target allocation, includes investments like real assets, infrastructure, and timberland, according to spokesman James Sinks. Separating out real estate and private equity, whose valuations are more correlated to market swings, will allow the new alternatives class to provide a better hedge in the event of another downturn, Sinks said.

“This is one of the lessons learned from the global economic crisis in 2008 and 2009, when a lot of pension plans thought they were really well diversified,” Sinks said. “In that particular event, stocks, bonds, real estate and private equity all went down.”

Read the full story: Oregon eyes expansion in redefined alternatives asset class

Published by Money Management Report/Pageant Media.