Russell Completes $3.7 Billion Transition for MainePERS

Russell Public Pension Fund Transition Management Activity in North America Tripled in the Second Half of 2009 and Continued Growth is Expected in 2010

TACOMA, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Russell Investments recently completed a $3.7 billion transition for the Maine Public Employees Retirement System (MainePERS)—a complex deal involving more than 6,500 securities, international futures, three custodians, twelve accounts and numerous investment and operational hurdles. To manage the transition, Russell portfolio managers and traders managed exposures and rebalanced plan-level asset allocation by working with a wide mix of financial futures, derivatives, ETFs and physical securities.

“We were extremely pleased to have been selected by MainePERS for this important assignment.”

"The MainePERS Board of Trustees made the significant strategic decision to move the majority of active public market assets into beta exposure and selected Russell Investments to manage the transition on our behalf," said Andrew Sawyer, chief investment officer at MainePERS.

"We find that public funds are increasingly looking to independent fiduciary models to run large, complex, multi-asset class transition events because the client knows that their interests are in total alignment with the transition manager’s," explained Steve Kirschner, head of transition management, Americas for Russell Investments. "We were extremely pleased to have been selected by MainePERS for this important assignment."

In the last six months of 2009, Russell Investments' transition management team in North America saw a marked increase in public pension fund transition activity, and the firm expects growth to continue into 2010. In the second half of 2009, Russell transitioned more than $86 billion for public funds in North America—more than triple what was transitioned in the first half of the year. In 2009, Russell also saw a year-over-year increase of 6% in transition events globally from 2008.

"The relative market stabilization seen in the second half of last year has put many public pension funds in a good position to make strategic changes to their investment policy," explained Kirschner. “Setting these large pools of assets into motion can create unintended portfolio risks that must be properly managed while at the same time maintaining full investment exposure.”

For more than 25 years, Russell has led the way in improving transition management practices and strategies to help clients maximize their assets. Russell also developed the widely-used T Standard as an objective tool that allows investors to measure the performance of transitioned portfolios.

Russell’s transition management services team operates within Russell Implementation Services and transitioned more than $581 billion in assets in 2009. The Russell team offers clients access to a global, multi-venue trading platform through agency execution by its expert equity, fixed income, currency and futures teams. Across all global asset classes, Russell’s focus on dynamic access to liquidity has shown to be particularly adept at evolving with the changing market environment.

About Russell

Russell Investments is a global investment company with $176 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2009. Founded in 1936, Russell serves individual, institutional and advisor clients in more than 40 countries and provides sophisticated solutions including investment consulting, investment funds, implementation services and global market indexes. Russell is world-renowned for its depth of strategic advice, manager research, quality of manager selection and access to some of the world's leading investment managers. It helps investors of all sizes put this access to work in corporate defined benefit and defined contribution plans and in the life savings of individual investors.

Russell Investment Group, a Washington, USA corporation, operates through subsidiaries worldwide including Russell Investments. Russell Investment Group is a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.

Russell Investments is the owner of the trademarks, service marks and copyrights related to its indexes.

Russell Implementation Services Inc. member FINRA / SIPC

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