The New Jersey Division of Investment, which manages the $70.9bn pension fund for state workers, submitted a full redemption notice to Scopia Capital Management at the end of December.

The redemption would see Scopia return roughly $258.7m the firm manages for New Jersey in its Scopia PX fund. The state originally committed $250m to Scopia in January 2013.

New York-based Scopia manages more than $11bn in assets, including about $2.4bn in the Scopia PX fund, according to a May 2018 regulatory filing. The firm was founded in 2001 by Matt Sirovich and Jeremy Mindich.

The redemption is in line with New Jersey’s plan to eliminate equity hedge funds as it cuts its total allocations to hedge fund strategies to 6% of the portfolio.

The only two funds left in the equity long/short portfolio as of 31 December 2018 were Scopia and Visium Asset Management’s Visium Balanced Offshore Fund. The state is already nearly finished redeeming its $150m commitment to Visium, originally made in August 2012. Of that $150m, New Jersey only contributed $100m. Even with all of the Scopia assets, the equity-oriented hedge fund portfolio amounts to only about 0.4% of the portfolio.

The total hedge fund portfolio stood at $4.8bn as of 31 December, or about 6.8% of the total portfolio.

The Scopia redemption was one of four presented to the State Investment Council across New Jersey’s risk mitigation strategy and global diversified credit portfolios.

Elsewhere in the risk mitigation strategy portfolio, New Jersey submitted partial redemption notices to Lynx Asset Management seeking $100m of its $200m commitment to the Lynx Common (Bermuda) fund, a managed futures fund, and to Rock Creek Group for $25m of its $800m commitment to the Woodley Park NJ fund of funds. No reasons for the partial redemptions were given.

In global diversified credit, the state submitted a notice for a full redemption of $501.9m from Blackstone’s GSO Credit Partners – A fund. The GSO investment represents about 10% of the state’s $5bn global diversified credit portfolio. The commitment dates from March 2012, making it among the oldest in the global diversified credit portfolio.

New Jersey axes Scopia as the pension’s L/S equity portfolio winds down on HFM InvestHedge.