City of Ann Arbor Employees’ Retirement System

City of Ann Arbor Employees’ Retirement System

The City of Ann Arbor Employees’ Retirement System administers pension benefits for municipal workers in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The fund operates under the oversight of a Board of Trustees chaired by Jeremy Flack, with day-to-day management led by Executive Director Wendy Orcutt. Unlike stand-alone municipal plans, the system maintains an integrated investment approach with the Retiree Health Care Benefit Plan & Trust, a voluntary employees’ beneficiary association that frequently co-invests in the same private market vehicles. CAAERS allocates across a broad alternatives platform. The private equity program is concentrated in buyout funds, with a secondary emphasis on other private equity strategies. This sits alongside dedicated portfolios for real estate, infrastructure, private credit, and natural resources. The infrastructure sleeve holds global exposure, while the private credit book remains domestically focused within the United States. By co-investing with the city’s VEBA trust, the system gains pacing flexibility and fee efficiencies on commitments that might otherwise be undersized for a solo mid-market pension. The fund’s governance structure reflects its municipal charter, with board oversight and an executive director managing external manager relationships and internal operations. While headcount and total assets are not publicly disclosed in a consolidated format, the system maintains active commitments across multiple private markets asset classes — a complexity level that suggests dedicated staff or consultant support for portfolio construction and monitoring. CAAERS’ structural differentiator lies in its co-investment synchronization with the Retiree Health Care Benefit Plan & Trust. Most municipal pension funds operate in isolation, negotiating fund documents and pacing plans independently. By aligning its alternatives book with a parallel city trust, the system effectively dials up commitment size and manager access without needing to increase its own allocation percentages, an arrangement that mimics the pooled purchasing power more commonly found in state-level investment councils.