Loan market opens up to new investors

When the $150 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) pension fund moves into a new asset class, the rest of the world tends to sit up and take notice. So it was when, last December, Calpers announced that it was allocating $1.5 billion to five carefully screened high-yield fund managers.

Four of the five – Shenkman Capital Management, Pimco, Nomura Asset Management and ING Ghent Asset Management – were given mandates to invest in high-yield bonds.