Park Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago

Park Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago

The Illinois Legislature created the Park Employees’ Annuity & Benefit Fund in 1919, effective July 1 of that year, to cover employees of Chicago’s three major park systems. The 1934 statutory consolidation that formed the Chicago Park District unified the workforce under a single defined-benefit plan. Today a seven-member Board of Trustees, led by President Edward L. Affolter, governs the fund alongside Executive Director Steve Swanson — the day-to-day investment lead. PEABF pursues a multi-asset-class strategy anchored by substantial real-asset exposure. Real estate holdings span core vehicles like the UBS Trumbull Property Fund, UBS Trumbull Income Fund, and the Principal Enhanced Property Fund, alongside a Fidelity Real Estate Index Fund sleeve. Infrastructure commitments reach globally through relationships with IFM Global Infrastructure and Cohen & Steers Global Infrastructure Fund, and domestically via the Ullico Infrastructure Fund. On the private-credit and opportunistic side, the fund allocates to RMS-managed hedge funds and has historically participated in buyout, co-investment, distressed-debt, and special-situations strategies. The fund operates from a single office at 3500 S. Morgan Street in Chicago. Its governance connects to the broader Illinois public-pension ecosystem through memberships in the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems (NCPERS) and the Illinois Public Pension Fund Association (IPPFA). The board includes Vice President Matthew Duggan, Secretary Frank C. Hodorowicz, Comptroller Jaime L. McCabe, and trustees Brian Biggane, Cynthia Evangelisti, Joan Coogan, and Jeffrey Shellhorn. PEABF’s architecture as a single-employer, municipality-tied plan for park workers creates a liability profile distinct from the state’s large-scale general employee or teacher retirement systems. The concentration in real assets and infrastructure mirrors a pension-fund orthodoxy that matches long-duration obligations with tangible, income-producing investments — a structural posture that prioritizes cash-flow visibility over return-chasing.