By David
G. Barry
A senior
member of the State of Rhode Island’s investment team is departing while two
others are being promoted.
Jonathan
Popielarski is leaving his role as director of private assets
with the Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island (ERSRI), while Justin
Maistrow is being elevated to deputy chief investment officer and Saul
Ioffe is set to become portfolio manager, private assets.
The moves were announced at the State Investment Commission’s August meeting,
which took place just a week after Eric Baggesen was named the state’s CIO.
The State Investment Commission oversees the $9.9 billion ERSRI.
Popielarski is taking a role in the private sector, but where specifically was
not disclosed. He joined ERSRI in 2013 after being an associate with Hastings
Equity Partners, a private equity firm. The ERSRI private assets’
portfolio includes private equity, private credit and private real assets.
Maistrow has been with the State of Rhode Island since 2017 and has since
January 2020 been a senior investment strategist. Previously, he was a senior
content manager with FactSet. Ioffe has been with the state since October 2019,
serving most recently as a senior investment analyst. He was previously an
analyst with Travelers.
Baggesen, a retired California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS)
executive, replaced Andrew Junkin, who in May was selected as the new
CIO of the $101.8 billion Virginia Retirement System (VRS). Baggesen spent 16
years with CalPERS, most recently as managing investment director of asset
allocation.
At the meeting, the board approved an up to $30 million commitment to Deerpath
Capital Advantage VI, a direct lending fund. The commitment fits into ERSRI’s
private credit portfolio, which has a 3% target allocation and is currently at
2.9%.
ERSRI seeks to invest $170 million per year in private credit, committing to
two to four primary funds per year. With Deerpath, it will have committed a
total of $110 million in 2022 to private credit.
For the fiscal year ended June 30, ERSRI returned -1.4%, beating its benchmark return of -2.9%.