The Allocator Finalists for II’s 2019 Hedge Fund Awards

Years like 2018 separate casual hedge fund investors from the elite. 

The allocator finalists for Institutional Investor’s 17th annual Hedge Fund Industry Awards belong to the latter group. Their manager selection and portfolio construction skills will be celebrated at a gala dinner in New York on June 27, where the winners of both allocator and manager categories will be revealed. 

[II Deep Dive: Here Are the Manager Finalists for the 2019 Hedge Fund Awards]

Finalist institutions will be up against their best peers — and in some cases, former team members.  

Less than two years into Dominic Garcia’s tenure as CIO, New Mexico’s public employee pension fund has earned a finalist spot alongside his old employer: the powerhouse State of Wisconsin Investment Board. Other large public plan finalists include Massachusetts’ state investment board MassPRIM, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, and state teachers’ funds for Illinois and Texas. 

Texas Teachers’ leaders — CIO Jerry Albright and deputy CIO Jase Auby — inherited an innovative hedge fund program in 2017 when they took over TRS, and have boldly made it their own, starting with a major emerging-manager play. 

The gala may be something of a reunion for TRS team members and alumni. UTIMCO — led by former TRS chief Britt Harris and several of his longtime deputies — is a finalist for Endowment of the Year. 

This highly competitive category pits the $45 billion University of Texas investment company against smaller private schools, including Bowdoin College, Villanova, and David Swensen’s legendary Yale University endowment. 

Competition will likewise be fierce for the title of Outsourced Investor of the Year. The OCIO sector has (unlike hedge funds) flourished in recent years, with the six finalist firms capitalizing more than most on abundant inflows. Half of the nominated firms are established giants — Cambridge Associates, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Neuberger Berman — and half are elite boutiques, including Makena Capital Management, Perella Weinberg Partners, and Appomattox Advisory. 

Which will triumph? That’s up the voters. 

The voting process for the Hedge Fund Awards begins with a public call for nominations; the Institutional Investor editorial staff concurrently devises a list of candidates based on its own knowledge of the firms and institutions, as well as discussions with its network of industry sources. All of the nominations, as well as the internally generated candidates, are then vetted based on how strongly the editorial team believes they meet a wide range of criteria for their respective categories.

After the nominees are publicly announced, Institutional Investor conducts a wide survey of U.S. allocators and invites them to vote for the manager nominees. Hedge fund managers are also invited to vote for the investor nominees. 

Two Lifetime Achievement Awards will also be presented at the June gala, one each to an asset allocator and an investment manager. Recipients will be announced in the coming weeks. 

For more information about the dinner or to request a ballot, please visit the event web site.