The $29 billion South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission today said that it has awarded a strategic relationship mandate to the D. E. Shaw Group, to be invested across the group’s alternative and benchmark-relative strategies.

The amount of the mandate was not specified.

“The tremendous resources, depth of expertise, and breadth of strategies of the D. E. Shaw Group make a strategic relationship very attractive to us,” said Bob Borden, chief investment officer of SCRS. “We look forward to enhancing and diversifying our investments with the D. E. Shaw Group through an array of absolute return, direct capital, private equity, real estate, long-only, and 130/30 opportunities.”