Key Takeaways
- • Texas Permanent School Fund ($60B) appoints Chris Eckerman as vice president of direct and co-investments effective December 15, 2025, signaling acceleration of its 2026 strategic plan to consolidate portfolio and reduce costs.
- • Eckerman brings 12+ years of co-investment expertise from State of Wisconsin Investment Board (SWIB), where his team sourced and executed approximately $3B in private equity and private credit co-investments.
- • The hire reflects Texas Permanent's strategic pivot toward "fewer but more strategic" manager relationships, consolidating fund-of-funds positions and outsourcing passive public equity and fixed income mandates to capture co-investment deal flow with minimal fees and carry.
- • CEO Robert Borden cited performance concerns at the December 4 board meeting, noting the fund's seven-year returns are "right about average to peers" while costs remain elevated, indicating underperformance relative to fees paid.
Summary
The Texas Permanent School Fund, one of the nation's largest education endowments with $60 billion in assets under management, has recruited Chris Eckerman from the State of Wisconsin Investment Board to lead its direct and co-investment initiatives. Eckerman, who assumed his role as vice president of direct and co-investments on December 15, 2025, brings substantial institutional investment experience, having spent more than a decade at SWIB where he served as head of co-investments and senior investment officer for private equity direct investments.
The appointment underscores a deliberate strategic reorientation at Texas Permanent, particularly as the fund executes its 2026 strategic plan aimed at portfolio optimization and cost reduction. CEO and Chief Investment Officer Robert Borden outlined the rationale at the board of directors' December 4 meeting, emphasizing a transition toward consolidating relationships and reducing complexity across the portfolio. The fund intends to divest fund-of-fund positions, outsource passive mandates in public equities and fixed income, and focus resources on direct and co-investment opportunities where the board can influence terms and reduce fee drag and carry expenses.
Borden explicitly flagged performance concerns as justification for the restructuring, telling the board that over a seven-year lookback period, the fund's returns "are right about average to our peers" but "our costs are higher, so that would indicate historically, we're not really getting what we pay for." This cost-to-performance gap has prompted the board to prioritize capital deployment where strategic selectivity can generate alpha and reduce drag from intermediary fees.
Eckerman's track record at SWIB positions him to execute this mandate. During his tenure at the Wisconsin board, he sourced and executed approximately $3 billion in co-investments across private equity and private credit, demonstrating both origination capability and deal execution proficiency. His appointment signals Texas Permanent's intent to build internal capacity for identifying, structuring, and managing co-investment opportunities across asset classes while maintaining disciplined fee and carry negotiations with external managers.
The hire reflects broader institutional investor trends toward internalization of co-investment functions and rationalization of manager relationships in response to fee compression and elevated scrutiny of net-of-fee performance metrics.
The appointment underscores a deliberate strategic reorientation at Texas Permanent, particularly as the fund executes its 2026 strategic plan aimed at portfolio optimization and cost reduction. CEO and Chief Investment Officer Robert Borden outlined the rationale at the board of directors' December 4 meeting, emphasizing a transition toward consolidating relationships and reducing complexity across the portfolio. The fund intends to divest fund-of-fund positions, outsource passive mandates in public equities and fixed income, and focus resources on direct and co-investment opportunities where the board can influence terms and reduce fee drag and carry expenses.
Borden explicitly flagged performance concerns as justification for the restructuring, telling the board that over a seven-year lookback period, the fund's returns "are right about average to our peers" but "our costs are higher, so that would indicate historically, we're not really getting what we pay for." This cost-to-performance gap has prompted the board to prioritize capital deployment where strategic selectivity can generate alpha and reduce drag from intermediary fees.
Eckerman's track record at SWIB positions him to execute this mandate. During his tenure at the Wisconsin board, he sourced and executed approximately $3 billion in co-investments across private equity and private credit, demonstrating both origination capability and deal execution proficiency. His appointment signals Texas Permanent's intent to build internal capacity for identifying, structuring, and managing co-investment opportunities across asset classes while maintaining disciplined fee and carry negotiations with external managers.
The hire reflects broader institutional investor trends toward internalization of co-investment functions and rationalization of manager relationships in response to fee compression and elevated scrutiny of net-of-fee performance metrics.
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