EUROPE/US – State Street Global Alliance, the jointly owned subsidiary of the e150bn Dutch civil service pension fund ABP and State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), has bought a major interest in Washington based Residential Capital Management, a recently formed US asset management firm providing managed portfolios of non-conforming residential mortgages.

The investment is the first by the Global Alliance venture since it was formed by ABP and State Street in February this year with the aim of investing seed capital in fledgling specialist asset management firms.

Residential Capital Management was the first US asset management firm to offer institutional investors an actively managed approach to the, so called, non-conforming residential mortgages.
These are offered to borrowers who do not have a high enough credit limit to conform to US standards.
The mortgages usually have an interest rate around 2-4 percentage points higher than normal loans, making them attractive to investors.

Other asset managers within the alliance include Advanced Investment Technology, US equity quantitative fund manager located in Clearwater, Florida; Boston Capital Management, a holding company for Pallada Asset Management, a Moscow based fund manager; Rexiter Capital Management, a London based active fundamental emerging markets manager and the Tuckerman Group, a manager of real estate investment portfolios based in Purchase, New York.