Debate Over OCERS Investment Strategy

Readers might find this article from yesterday's Pensions & Investments Online of interest, given that the subject is the Orange County Employee Retirement System's investment portfolio (H/T to Sup. Moorlach's "Moorlach Update" e-mail):

Debate over investment risk roils Orange County

By Arleen Jacobius
Posted: September 3, 2007, 6:01 AM EST

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Ever since Orange County filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in 1994, its $7.7 billion pension system’s board has considered itself to be fairly risk averse.

But Chriss Street, the county treasurer/tax collector who sits on the board of the Orange County Employees Retirement System, Santa Ana, doesn’t see it that way. Mr. Street said in an interview that the system’s asset allocation has incorporated too much risk by including swaps and bank loans in one of its least risky fixed-income portfolios.

So in June, the Orange County Board of Supervisors, the biggest contributor to the pension system, hired Strategic Investment Solutions, San Francisco, to review the fund’s asset allocation, investment policies and investment management selection and monitoring.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Comments

[Monkey Business]

Maybe we should give Mr. Street the opportunity to run the thing by himself. We'll give him an expense account, and then we'll...uhhhh never mind!