San Diego County Pension Fund Dumps Salient Partners

San Diego County Employees Retirement Association said on Thursday it would end its investment advisory service agreement with Salient Partners, effective Aug. 15. The San Diego County fund, or SDCERA, replaced its outsourced CIO, Salient, with internal CIO Stephen Sexauer, who was hired in May. SDCERA ends controversial “risk-parity” strategy The San Diego County Employees Retirement Association, a large California pension fund, said last week that it would terminate its six-year relationship with Houston-based Salient. The fund’s Salient-led strategy had accounted for one-fifth of its roughly $10.5 billion in assets. The county had hired Salient to goose returns. It increased leverage threefold to…