Providence Board of Investment Commissioners Meeting – March 26, 2026
Providence Board of Investment Commissioners Meeting – March 26, 2026
The Board of Investment Commissioners of the City of Providence met on March 26, 2026, at 12:03 PM, with Chairman Mayor Smiley presiding. A quorum was present. Advisors from Siegel (Joe and Peter Sullivan) presented the quarterly investment performance report (as of December 31, 2025), a monthly performance flash for February 2026, and a trust fund update. The board also considered and voted on a small rebalancing recommendation within the hedge fund portfolio.
Discussion Items
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Investment Performance Analysis (Item 1) – Presenters reviewed the total plan return for the fourth quarter of 2025 (1.3%) and the one-year return (13.6%), both net of fees. The portfolio ranked near the median of over 1,000 public defined benefit plans on a one-year basis, but outperformed approximately 90% of peers on three- and five-year horizons. The board noted strong absolute returns exceeding the plan’s expected return range of 6.8%–7.5%. Active manager performance was highlighted: Boston Partners (mid-cap value) outperformed 80% of peers since inception, while Boston Partners (small-cap value) underperformed its benchmark by 4–5% in the trailing year but still ranked above median among 145 small-cap value managers. The fixed-income manager Lumis Sales outperformed 90% of active funds and captured 103% of market upside and only 86% of downside. For the month of February 2026, the total plan returned 1.3%, in line with the policy index. Year-to-date underperformance was attributed to a cash drag (historically 8–10% cash holdings, now reduced to under 1%) and weakness in the hedge fund portfolio, which underperformed its composite index by about 10% over the past year. However, the hedge fund Renaissance Institutional Equities posted a strong 5.1% return in February.
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Trust Funds (Item 2) – The board received a summary of the City of Providence trust funds, showing combined assets of approximately $36 million across eight trusts (e.g., Charles Smith, City Council, Parks and Recreation, Dexter, etc.). For the month of February 2026, the composite trust fund returned 1.9%; for the two-month period, 4.6%; and for the trailing one year, 19%. Most trusts are indexed to benchmarks and performed well. No manager changes were recommended.
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Rebalancing Recommendation (Item 3) – The advisors recommended moving $2.5 million from the Renaissance Institutional Equities fund (a long/short equity manager) into BlackRock’s Quello Strategic Partners fund (a more diversified hedge fund strategy) to reduce risk within the hedge fund portfolio. Renaissance was overweight by 0.4% (4.4% vs. 4.0% target). The rebalancing brings the allocation back to target and better balances the portfolio’s risk profile.
Key Outcomes
- Motion to accept the investment performance report (Item 1) – Approved unanimously by voice vote.
- Motion to approve the trust fund report (Item 2) – Approved unanimously by voice vote.
- Motion to approve the rebalancing recommendation (Item 3) – Approved unanimously by voice vote. The motion authorized the movement of $2.5 million from Renaissance to BlackRock Quello, with execution left to staff.
- Motion to adjourn – Approved unanimously.
Meeting Transcript
Yeah, we're gonna myself. I didn't see it. I know we need that and Cindy's gonna be working with this. Oh, yeah, look at that. Everybody's getting a turn. Oh, you're writing in it. Oh, they are it'll focus on anyone speaking. Oh, okay. We have everybody. All right. Okay. It's 1203. I'll call the March 26th meeting of the Board of Investment Commissioners to order who's asked first year roll call. Chairman Mayor Smiley. Vice Chair Women Silveria present. Mr. Husband. Present. Councilwoman Ryan. Present. Mr. Costello is absent. Mr. Hirsch is also absent. Mr. Winkleman. Here. Great. Hi. Presently have a quorum. Wonderful. Welcome everybody. We're joined again by our advisors for Siegel. They have both monthly reports, but because we didn't have a meeting last month due to special circumstances, we also have a little bit of year-end summary to go through. And then we pending the will of the commissioners, we will have a potential vote in item three with respect to a small rebalancing decision. So we're joined by order Joe and Peter Sullivan, and we'll turn it over then for item one investment performance analysis takeaway. Thank you very much. So within the investment performance analysis agenda item, Rose and I anticipate going over the quarterly performance as of the uh end of uh last year. Um focus on the quarter and the year, a little bit of um uh analysis of performance on a peer group basis. Um after that we will go over the performance of uh the ERS uh as of the end of February and end of um a discussion of uh the trust performance. Uh we do have a uh very small kind of perform uh uh recommendation uh to make uh for the IRS that shouldn't take very long. Uh and I'll start with uh the City of Providence Board of Investment Commissioners. Um if you could flip to in lower right hand corner there's page 23. Uh again, this is our attempt to uh synthesize a couple hundred pages of um analyses uh and then easy to hand up and out. Um so um on page 23 you should see total plan, all public DV plans in the upper left-hand corner. Um so what we want to do is focus on the total plan return as of the end of the fourth quarter. Uh we had a 1.3% return for that quarter, uh and we had a 13.6% return uh for the one year. Um if you look at the 1231 numbers, we're looking at the performance of the total plan, net of all fees, and comparing it uh to other defined benefit plans in the public space. Um in the parentheses you'll actually see your peer group ranking. So the lower the number in the peer group uh parentheses, the higher or better we are done relative to peers.
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