By Susan Barreto
What a difference a little more than four years makes. About $40 billion, to be exact, in the US public pension fund marketplace – or just a fraction of the assets that flowed into hedge funds despite a credit crunch, the largest securities fraud case in history and lack of funding by state legislatures.
The hedge fund portfolios of 41 of the largest US public pension funds now have $64 billion in assets invested, according to the latest InvestHedge public pension fund survey. With overall assets totalling more than $2 trillion, it is clear that the majority of state retirement systems in the US have some exposure to hedge funds, which was not the case in 2007 when InvestHedge last surveyed this group.
Of this universe of 41 public pension funds, 22 are allocated, or plan to allocate, to funds of hedge funds; while the remainder invest directly...