The $904m Allegheny County Retirement Board has added Maplewood Capital to its stable of emerging managers.

Board members in November approved allocating $1m to the Maplewood Capital Partners fund.

Walter Szymanski, retirement office manager for the Pittsburgh-based pension fund, said the commitment was made on the advice of its emerging manager consultant, PFM. Wilshire is the general investment consultant.

Allegheny County has had an emerging manager programme in place since 2010. The goal is to identify quality minority- and women-owned investment managers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

Maplewood is headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania. The firm was co-founded by former Guggenheim Partners and Hatteras Investments pros Darren Wallis and James Dunn. It was registered with the SEC last year.

Formerly Maplewood Advisors, the firm focuses on event-driven strategies. The Maplewood Capital Partners fund was pitched to the Allegheny County Retirement Board as a global macro play.

Szymanski said he did not immediately know how much Allegheny County had in its emerging manager portfolio.

The pension fund also had a $2.7m allocation to hedge funds as of 30 September 2018.

Allegheny County adds Maplewood to emerging manager programme on HFM InvestHedge.