Administration May 12, 2008

CalSTRS Names Fixed Income Developing Manager Firms

May 12, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) has announced its intent to award contracts to three investment management firms that will implement a developing manager program in its fixed income portfolio.
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CalSTRS named San Francisco-based Leading Edge Investment Advisors, LLC, as a fund-of-funds manager. The two direct management firms selected were Access Capital Strategies, LLC, of Boston and Community Capital Management, Inc., of Weston, Florida. Dollar amounts have not been established for each contract.

According to the announcement, the three firms will be CalSTRS fiduciaries and have discretionary authority over CalSTRS assets with investment mandates focusing on core plus and high yield bond strategies. Their mandates will also include special situations in the mortgage and municipal markets related to housing investments in California.

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“These firms will help us find the emerging stars in fixed income and focus on the smaller firms that will add value to the teachers’ retirement portfolio,” said CalSTRS Chief Investment Officer Christopher J. Ailman. “This strategy is part of our commitment to look for value everywhere we can find it to strengthen the financial security of our members and their families.”

CalSTRS defines a developing manager as any investment management firm with less than $2 billion under management.

The Developing Manager Program in fixed income is a new direction for CalSTRS’ oldest asset class, which until 1966 comprised the entire CalSTRS investment portfolio.

The first phase of the Opportunistic Portfolio was funded with almost $6 billion going to nine core plus and high yield managers. The Developing Manager Program, the second phase of this opportunistic strategy, will be funded at $300 million to $500 million and is designed to complement the existing lineup of external managers, according to CalSTRS.

Fixed Income holdings are currently valued at $32.7 billion and are targeted at 20% of the $164 billion CalSTRS investment portfolio.

CalSTRS recently put in place emerging manager programs in two of its other asset classes:  In February 2008, CalSTRS named four firms to its $1.8 billion U.S. Equities Developing Manager Program (see  CalSTRS Taps Four for Developing Manager Program ). One month later, CalSTRS announced a $200 million effort to find private equity partners seeking to raise their first, second or third fund (see  CalSTRS Expands PE Program ).

Developing managers interested in working with CalSTRS in fixed income can contact:  Clayton C. Jue, President and CIO of Leading Edge, 415-217-7030.

Benefits May 9, 2008

Mom Salaries Decline in 2008

May 9, 2008 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Salary.com's annual Mom Salary Survey found that for 2008, the time mothers spend performing the 10 most popular "Mom job functions" would equate to an annual cash compensation of $116,805 for a Stay-at-Home Mom and $68,405 for a Working Mom, down from last year's calculations of $138,094 and $85,938.
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Salary.com said in a press release that it revised the calculation to reflect the impact of company size on mom’s compensation and provides a more complete view using total cash compensation for the mom job. Previously, the survey was based on the national median base salary for all company sizes (see Survey: Stay-At-Home Moms Get 3% Raise in 2007 ).

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“Smaller organizations typically pay less. By using data for companies with fewer than 25 employees-offset slightly by the addition of annual bonuses-we saw a net decrease in U.S mom’s pay of nearly $21K from 2007. We believe this is a valuable way to help educate the average person about the factors affecting compensation and how employers determine pay,” said Bill Coleman, senior vice president at Salary.com.

According to the announcement, the primary driver of mom’s six-figure salary, however, remains the amount of overtime worked. This year, mom’s overtime averaged 54.4 hours per week as Stay-at-Home Moms work a 94.4 hour “work week” and Working Moms reported an average 54.6 hour “mom work week” in addition to their paying jobs.

The job titles that best matched a mom’s definition of her work included housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, laundry machine operator, computer operator, psychologist, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive officer, and janitor. In the Mom Salary Survey, 18,000 moms quantified their hours worked in each role for a typical week.

The survey data has been incorporated into the MomSalaryWizard, a tool on the Web site where users can personalize the survey data to reflect time spent per job in an average week and print a personalized paycheck.

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