The $203.2bn Florida State Board of Administration allocated $200m to Garda Capital Partners’ Garda Fixed Income Relative Value Opportunity Fund in the first quarter of 2019, according to a summary of commitments.
The Garda allocation was part of $875m in commitments on behalf of the Florida Retirement System’s strategic investments portfolio, which includes other types of alternative investments in addition to hedge funds. The SBA manages the $158.8bn retirement system.
Florida is in the process of building out its strategic investments allocations to meet a target allocation of 12% of the portfolio. As of 28 February, strategic investments comprised 8.4% of the FRS portfolio, or about $13.3bn.
Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Garda was founded in 2015 by Jeff Drobny, Tim Magnusson and Rob Goedken, who all previously worked at Cargill subsidiary Black River Asset Management. Garda, a fixed income trading specialist, manages $3.9bn in institutional assets. This is the SBA’s first investment with Garda.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, the SBA added $1.75bn in new strategic investments commitments, including $250m to the Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Advisors FD fund, $200m to Bridgewater Associates’ Pure Alpha Major Markets fund and $100m to Atalaya Capital Management’s SOF VII distressed private credit fund.
Florida uses Aon as its general investment consultant and Cambridge Associates for alternatives.
Florida taps Garda for fixed income relative value on HFM InvestHedge.