Health Care Fund Non-U.S. Equity
The Non-U.S. Equity sub-asset class invests in publicly traded stock issued by companies located outside of the United States across over 100 countries worldwide. The policy has allocation targets to four market categories including developed markets (excluding the U.S.), developed markets small capitalization (excluding the U.S.), emerging markets and emerging markets small capitalization. Exposure to those categories are managed using both externally managed portfolios and internally managed portfolios with internally managed portfolios being generally index-oriented. The sub-asset class is approximately 78 percent actively managed and 22 percent index-oriented.
The performance benchmark for the Non-U.S. Equity sub-asset class is a custom benchmark composed of the MSCI World Index ex U.S. Standard Index, the MSCI World Index ex U.S. Small Cap Index, the MSCI Emerging Markets Standard Index, and the MSCI Emerging Markets Small Cap Index. It is expected that active management will add value versus the index in the less-efficient non-U.S. markets.
The focus of the actively managed portion is on selecting a diverse group of managers, each of whom has the potential to add long-term value. The aggregation of managers results in a diversified portfolio that has no major structural mismatches or tilts that would cause the returns or volatility to dramatically differ from the custom benchmark. The types of managers include:
- Index and enhanced index managers
- Quantitative and fundamental strategies
- Value and growth styles
- All-country ex-U.S. broad mandates, specialist emerging markets and specialist international small cap
Staff monitors non-U.S. markets and evolving strategies within those markets to identify potential improvements to the program.