The FRS Select U.S. Large Value Stock Active Fund was developed for the FRS Investment Plan and may use multiple institutional investment managers that serve in a fiduciary capacity. Each manager has a target share, which may be periodically changed based on funding levels and other considerations. Index managers are expected to be used as the primary liquidity vehicle to facilitate initial funding, daily transfers and rebalancing.

The historical performance and fee data for the FRS Select Funds was derived using the following approach. The FRS received historical monthly gross of fees return data for the individual investment managers or bundled provider products (for the FRS Select Balanced Funds). Historical monthly gross returns for the individual managers were adjusted for the fees applicable to the FRS.

The fees used to calculate net returns were based on the highest fee tier, representing the fees charged against the first dollar invested in the Fund. This "worst case" fee scenario was also used in other fee presentations (e.g. Fund Profile, Investment Funds Summary, etc.). For the FRS Select Active Funds (i.e with multiple investment managers), the FRS calculated a weighted average of the underlying managers' historical net returns according to the target manager allocations identified in each Detailed Fund Operations.



Details for Investment Manager #1
Investment Manager

Quantitative Management Associates (QMA)

2 Gateway Center
Newark, New Jersey 07102
Targeted Share of Fund

75% (actual share will vary)

Asset Class and Objective

Specialty U.S. stock fund

Fund Benchmark

Russell 1000 Value Index

Management Type

Actively Managed

Marketing Company

None

Restrictions on Transfers Investment funds in the FRS Investment Plan are subject to excessive trading restrictions as detailed in the FRS Investment Plan Summary Plan Description and FRS Excessive Fund Trading Policy.
Fees and Expenses

Fees and expenses are only one of several factors that should be considered when making investment decisions. More information on fees and expenses can be found in the FAQs on the MyFRS.com website.

Investment Philosophy

QMA believes that they can generate attractive returns by investing in out-of-favor companies with low price/earnings (P/E) ratios that have historically outperformed the broad stock market averages.

Research Process

QMA's proprietary quantitative model is the primary source of investment ideas and information. The quantitative model assesses a database of historical reported earnings to obtain a clear picture of each company's continuing operating earnings. These reported earnings are adjusted for non-recurring items, such as restructuring charges and gains and losses from asset sales, which distort a company’s normal operating earnings.

Security Selection

The model calculates a "normalized" P/E ratio for each company in the database and ranks each stock from lowest to highest adjusted P/E ratio. Stocks included in the top 20% of the model's P/E rankings (lowest P/E) are considered for possible inclusion in the portfolio.

Portfolio Construction

Portfolio construction process encompasses technical screens and fundamental checks to refine the top 20% of the stock candidates selected by the model. The portfolio is built by applying a modified equal weighting approach to the list of the candidates. Position limits are generally 0.3%-1% above the benchmark weighting per individual stock holding. Maximum industry and sector constraints are also applied. This approach seeks to reduce risk relative to the portfolio's benchmark.

Sell Discipline

QMA's model evaluates valuation and momentum factors to identify sale candidates. Holdings that fall in the bottom 60% of the model's P/E rankings (highest P/Es) or are out of the top 20% for 52 consecutive weeks and exhibit positive price momentum are candidates for sale.

Portfolio Manager(s)
Name Investment Experience Experience Last 5 Years
John Leib 28 years Vice President, Portfolio Manager
Deborah Woods 30 years Vice President, Portfolio Manager
Steve Bloom 25 years Principal, Product Specialist
Robert Leung 13 years Associate, Quantitative Research



Details for Investment Manager #2
Investment Manager

BlackRock

45 Fremont Street, 34th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
Targeted Share of Fund

25% (actual share will vary)

Asset Class and Objective

Specialty U.S. stock fund

Fund Benchmark

Russell 1000 Value Index

Management Type

Passively Managed

Marketing Company

None

Restrictions on Transfers Investment funds in the FRS Investment Plan are subject to excessive trading restrictions as detailed in the FRS Investment Plan Summary Plan Description and FRS Excessive Fund Trading Policy.
Fees and Expenses

Fees and expenses are only one of several factors that should be considered when making investment decisions. More information on fees and expenses can be found in the FAQs on the MyFRS.com website.

Investment Philosophy

BlackRock' (BTC) objective in managing the fund is to deliver a high quality and cost-effective index-based portfolio to institutional investors.

Research Process

See Security Selection and Portfolio Construction

Security Selection

Full replication is used to invest in all of the index securities to minimize tracking error.

Portfolio Construction

The fund shall be invested and reinvested in a portfolio of equity securities with the objective of approximating as closely as practicable the capitalization weighted total rate of return of the segment of the United States market for publicly traded equity securities represented by the 1000 largest capitalized companies. The criterion for the selection of investments shall be the Russell 1000 Index.

Futures and Options: BTC does not use futures to add value; futures are used only to decrease tracking error. Futures contracts are employed within the collective funds to "equitize" cash flows. These flows are generated from dividends and other cash flows associated with securities in the portfolio. Futures contracts are purchased to provide immediate market exposure proportionate to the size of both cash flows and residual cash within the portfolio. The goal is to reduce the overall portfolio tracking error that would be incurred should cash remain unvested in the portfolio. Cash in excess of 0.15% would be equitized using futures contracts.

Securities Lending: BlackRock' philosophy on borrower selection is to concentrate their lending to highest credit quality borrowers of those who meet stringent capital, financial and risk requirements and who are able to meet their obligations within the terms of the lending contract. Their risk management controls include:

  • Rigorous credit screening of borrowers to determine capital adequacy, liquidity and operations efficiency.
  • Collateral requirements that govern receipt and monitoring of collateral received in lieu of securities borrowed. BTC accepts only cash, obligations of the US Government and irrevocable letters of credit.
  • A minimum of 102% and 105% of the market value for domestic and international loans is required at the outset, respectively.
  • A daily mark-to-market procedure.
  • Investment policy controls applied to the investment of cash received as collateral.
  • Record-keeping guidelines, written agreements and regulatory reporting managed in compliance with all applicable regulatory controls of the securities lending programs of financial institutions.

As a result of their risk controls, neither BTC nor their clients have ever experienced a loss due to collateral reinvestment, operational negligence or broker default.

Sell Discipline

Not applicable

Portfolio Manager(s)
Name Investment Experience Experience Last 5 Years
Amy Schioldager 19 years Head, U.S. Indexing, GIMG, at BTC since 1989
Ed Corallo 19 years Head, Institutional Indexing, at BTC since 1997
Jennifer Hsui 9 years Senior Portfolio Manager, at BI since 2006
IMPORTANT NOTE: The information on investment philosophy, research process, security selection, portfolio construction, sell discipline and personnel was provided to the FRS by product marketing companies or investment managers. The FRS has taken this information as given for the purposes of this document.