California’s City of Oakland Police & Fire Retirement System has selected emerging fixed income manager Ramirez Asset Management (RAM) to run its approximately USD40 million domestic core fixed income portfolio for its pension fund.
The announcement comes on the heels of a string of new mandates for minority-owned Ramirez including, in November, a USD25 million dedicated municipal portfolio by a large institutional public entity.
RAM was also allocated USD55 million to its Strategic Core strategy as part of a large institutional manager’s external manager programme as a sub-adviser for one of its larger institutional clients.
Founded in 2002, the New York City-headquartered firm has increased its assets by an average of 25 per cent each year over the past five years, growing to USD1.6 billion in assets under management as of 30 November 2016.
RAM's institutional client base includes public and private defined benefit and defined contribution plans, Taft Hartley plans, corporations, state and local governments, as well as foundations and endowments.
"Taxable municipals have been one of the best-performing asset classes over the last several years and have provided positive diversification benefits and low correlations with other fixed income sectors," says Samuel Ramirez Jr (pictured), RAM’s founder, president and CEO.
