NISA today announced that it is incorporating a quantitative equity strategy into its suite of product solutions.
The addition of the quantitative equity strategy represents a natural extension of NISA’s established investing platform, which currently manages client portfolios including investment-grade fixed income, derivative overlay and an existing $16+ billion direct indexing equity strategy. With this new capability and dedicated team, NISA can combine its hallmark, client-centric customization with an in-demand quantitative equity solution that will be powered by the research-based, quantitatively informed fundamentals that support its foundation and overarching investment thesis.
“While we have only grown organically since our founding 30 years ago, we believe there is a need for additional high-quality quantitative equity capabilities for institutional investors and other asset owners at scale,” said David G. Eichhorn, NISA’s CEO and Head of Investment Strategies. “Today, NISA finds itself in the advantageous position to diversify by integrating an experienced quantitative strategy team, without losing focus on our core business.”
The strategy will be led by Mohan Balachandran, who returns to NISA after leading the successful development and launch of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas’ (“TRS”) Multi-asset Strategies Group. Mohan will be supported by Kyle Schmidt, Ryan Leary, Eddie Pluhar and Peter Ruymgaart, who are also joining the Firm from TRS.
While at TRS, Balachandran, Schmidt, Leary, Pluhar and Ruymgaart collectively helped oversee $16 billion of assets, as reported in May 2024, across quantitative equity and alternative risk premia portfolios seeking to generate alpha over a long-term horizon. Prior to joining NISA, Schmidt spent 12 years at TRS. Before working on the quantitative equity program, he launched the retirement system’s first directly managed, equity market-neutral strategy. Leary comes to NISA with almost a decade of experience in quantitative equity research and management at TRS, with a focus on alpha signal research.