CalPERS adds specialist consultants

CalPERS has made three additions to its General Pension Consultant Services Spring-Fed Pool, including a consultant that specialises in sustainable consulting, infrastructure and property with its sector-specific research including climate change.

ARUP North America, now one of six consultants in the pool, will dedicate 24 employees to the CalPERS account. It specialises in sustainable consulting, detail design and evaluation of high performance buildings.

The Spring Fed Pool is a group of consultants that specialise in particular areas, and with the new additions the pension fund now has four consultants specialising in organisational and structural analysis.

In addition to ARUP, the new consultants are Beacon Consulting Group, and Robert H Schaffer & Associates, which join the existing three of Aon Investment Consulting, McKinsey & Company, and Duff & Phelps.

Robert Schaffer specialises in risk strategy, asset allocation, corporate governance and systems and controls. It has previously worked with CalPERS’ investment office.

And Beacon Consulting Group is a management consultant to the investment management industry with clients including investment managers, custodians, hedge funds and pension funds.

The CalPERS’ pool includes a service structure consisting of six specialty areas of expertise:

1. General investment analysis and research (Aon Investment Consulting)

2. Organisational and structural performance (Beacon Consulting Group, Robert Schaffer & Associates, Aon Investment Consulting, McKinsey & Company)

3. Performance analysis and benchmarks

4. Asset allocation (Aon Investment Consulting)

5. Risk management and risk budgeting (Aon Investment Consulting)

6. Specialty consulting (Duff & Phelps, ARUP North America, McKinsey & Company)

CalPERS has an annual fees’ budget for the Spring Fed Pool of $1.2 million.