E217: How to Manage $15B: Insights from Sacramento County's Pension Fund

How should a public pension build an active equity and absolute-return program—without diluting alpha or chasing the “hot” manager? In this episode, I go deep with Brian Miller, Senior Investment Officer at the Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System (SCERS), on constructing a $6B public-equity book inside a ~$15B plan, sizing managers, and using absolute-return strategies as true diversifiers. Brian reflects on 16 years at Tukman Grossman Capital Management (value, long-term compounding, and staying consistent), the realities of “LP capture” across cycles, and why tracking error isn’t the right risk lens. We unpack manager due diligence (including on-site visits), active vs. passive trade-offs, the global/US mix, and how SCERS uses MSCI Caissa for whole-portfolio visibility.