Tag: Brad Lander

NYC pension funds lose $2M in failed First Republic, Signature banks

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nypost.com/2023/05/20/nyc-pension-funds-lose-2m-in-first-republic-signature-banks/

Excerpt:

City pension funds had almost $2 million invested with First Republic and Signature banks — losing it all when both banks failed this year.

The losses were contained in new data The Post obtained from the city Comptroller’s office under a Freedom of Information Law request.

Though a federal bailout rescued bank depositors, the city’s pension cash had been invested in bank stocks and bonds.

“The overall loss is negligible in the context of the daily market motions of our $240 billion pension funds,” said Chloe Chik, spokesperson for Comptroller Brad Lander.

All five city pensions funds were hit in the bank failures.

Author(s): Jon Levine

Publication Date: 20 May 2023

Publication Site: NY Post

Arizona divesting funds from BlackRock over ESG push

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/arizona-divesting-funds-from-blackrock-over-esg-push

Excerpt:

Arizona is forging ahead with its plan to pull the state’s funds from BlackRock due to concerns over the massive investment firm’s push for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies that have led other states to take similar actions.

Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee said in a statement released Thursday that the state treasury’s Investment Risk Management Committee (IRMC) began to assess the relationship between the state’s trust fund and BlackRock in late 2021. 

“Part of the review by IRMC involved reading the annual letters by CEO Larry Fink, which in recent years, began dictating to businesses in the United States to follow his personal political beliefs,” Yee wrote. “In short, BlackRock moved from a traditional asset manager to a political action committee. Our internal investment team believed this moved the firm away from its fiduciary duty in general as an asset manager.”

In response to those findings, Yee noted that Arizona began to divest over $543 million from BlackRock money market funds in February 2022 and “reduced our direct exposure to BlackRock by 97%” over the course of the year. Yee added that Arizona “will continue to reduce our remaining exposure in BlackRock over time in a phased in approach that takes into consideration safe and prudent investment strategy that protects the taxpayers.”

….

Florida’s chief financial officer announced recently that the state’s treasury is taking action to remove about $2 billion in assets from BlackRock’s stewardship before the end of this year. In October, Louisiana and Missouri announced they would reallocate state pension funds away from BlackRock, which amounted to roughly $1.3 billion in combined assets. Taken together with Arizona’s divestment, roughly $3.8 billion in state funds have been divested from BlackRock by those four states alone.

Additionally, North Carolina’s state treasurer has called for BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s resignation and the Texas legislature has subpoenaed BlackRock for financial documents.

The investment firm has also taken heat from activists who argue BlackRock isn’t doing enough to follow through with its ESG commitments. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander wrote to Fink in September citing an “alarming” contradiction between the company’s words and its deeds. Lander wrote, “BlackRock cannot simultaneously declare that climate risk is a systemic financial risk and argue that BlackRock has no role in mitigating the risks that climate change poses to its investments by supporting decarbonization in the real economy.”

Author(s): Eric Revell

Publication Date: 11 Dec 2022

Publication Site: Fox Business

Pension Plunge Puts Eric Adams in Future Financial Squeeze

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/8/1/23287828/pension-plunge-eric-adams

Excerpt:

New York City’s pension funds lost 8.65% of their value for the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to a release Friday from city Comptroller Brad Lander. 

While more detailed information won’t be released until September, the losses reduced the pension funds to about $240 billion.

While the S&P 500 stock index fell 14% in the first six months of 2022, Lander said that all is well with the pension funds “Despite market declines on a scale that hasn’t been seen in decades, the New York City retirement system outperformed our benchmarks and are well positioned to weather market volatility in the long run,” he said in a statement.

But the city budget — currently $101 billion — will still take a hit.

Author(s): Greg David

Publication Date: 1 Aug 2022

Publication Site: The City

NYC Comptroller Lander and Trustees Announce $7 Billion Milestone in Climate Solutions Investment

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/nyc-comptroller-lander-and-trustees-announce-7-billion-milestone-in-climate-solutions-investment/

Excerpt:

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and trustees of the New York City Retirement Systems announced that investments in climate solutions have now reached more than $7 billion across all systems and asset classes as of the end of 2021, well exceeding the $4 billion goal set by three of the funds in 2018. These investments in companies that are helping to facilitate a just transition to a low carbon economy build on the $4 billion divestment by three of the five funds from companies that own fossil fuel reserves, which is expected to be completed later this year.

This milestone surpasses the goals set by the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS), Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), and Board of Education Retirement System (BERS), in 2018 to double their investments in climate solutions from $2 billion to $4 billion by 2022. In October 2021, the three Systems adopted a goal to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. As part of this commitment, the three Systems set a goal to reach a total of $37 billion in climate solutions investments by 2035, in line with a total of $50 billion across all five Systems by 2035.

The climate solutions in the New York City Retirement Systems’ portfolio includes investments in companies that derive a majority of their revenue from climate mitigation, adaptation, and resilience activities, such as renewable energy, energy efficiency, pollution prevention, and low-carbon buildings. Climate solutions investments in the Systems’ portfolios have grown consistently and greatly in the last several years, more than doubling in value since 2018.

Author: Brad Lander

Publication Date: 5 April 2022

Publication Site: NYC Comptroller’s Office

New York City Wants to Amp Up Risk in Workers’ Pensions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-wants-to-amp-up-risk-in-workers-pensions-11650976985

Graphic:

Excerpt:

New York City’s comptroller is the latest public official trying to change laws aimed at limiting risk in pension investments, as U.S. state and local pension funds try to plug shortfalls in a low-return environment.

Comptroller Brad Lander, who oversees about $260 billion in retirement money for city police, firefighters, teachers and other public workers, is asking New York lawmakers for more flexibility to invest in private markets, high-yield debt and foreign stocks. The state comptroller’s office, which supervises another $280 billion in retirement assets, views the idea favorably, with a representative saying such flexibility “is key in times of market volatility.”

Pension funds, like household investors, are facing a relatively bleak environment for stocks and bonds, the bread and butter of a traditional retirement portfolio. In the face of historic inflation and Federal Reserve efforts to contain it, these funds are finding they can no longer rely on bonds to rise when equities fall and vice versa. In the first quarter, the S&P 500 returned minus 4.6% while the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate bond index returned minus 5.93%.

“Those two things taken together is what’s scary: the prospect of both going down at the same time,” said Steve Foresti, chief investment officer at Wilshire Associates, which advises large public pension funds. Retirement portfolio managers, he said, are asking “in that environment, do I have anything that actually goes up?”

Author(s): Heather Gillers

Publication Date: 26 April 2022

Publication Site: WSJ

New York pension money ‘held hostage’ by Vladimir Putin, Russia

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://nypost.com/2022/05/14/ny-pension-money-held-hostage-by-vladimir-putin-russia/

Excerpt:

New York employees and taxpayers are unwittingly financing Russian companies and the oligarch pals of Vladimir Putin with at least $519 million invested in assets now frozen by the war-mongering dictator, The Post has learned.

City and state pension systems have pledged to sell off the holdings in protest of Russia’s assault on Ukraine, but Moscow has prohibited foreign investors from dumping the stocks.

“Putin is a thug and he’s holding our money hostage,” said Gregory Floyd, a Teamsters union leader and trustee of the New York City Employee Retirement System, NYCERS.

New York City’s five pension systems – covering teachers, cops, firefighters and other city employees – have invested a total $284.5 million in 33 publicly traded Russian stocks, according to records released to The Post by city Comptroller Brad Lander’s office. 

On Feb. 25, the market value of the Russian assets was $185.9 million, nearly $100 million less than the purchase price, the latest available records show.

Author(s): Susan Edelman, Thomas Barrabi

Publication Date: 14 May 2022

Publication Site: NY Post

As Comptroller, Lander Would Use ‘Environmental, Social and Governance’ Factors to Inform Pension Investment

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.gothamgazette.com/city/10773-comptroller-lander-environmental-social-governance-esg-pension-investment?mc_cid=234d7207fb&mc_eid=1a5d3a1f3d

Excerpt:

The New York City Comptroller is an investment advisor and fiduciary for New York City’s $266 billion public pension system that serves 700,000 current and former teachers, firefighters, health care workers, police officers, and other retired city employees.

Brad Lander, the Democratic nominee for Comptroller, is all but certain to win the general election this fall in the overwhelmingly Democratic city after prevailing in a competitive primary earlier this year. If successful, Lander would be inaugurated in January and soon be able to make recommendations to the Boards of Trustees of the city’s five public pension funds on how their many billions should be invested, while also voting directly on four of the five pension boards, making him the key figure in almost all investment decisions.

The implications are significant given that city workers’ pensions are on the line, and because the city guarantees those pensions, billions are spent each year to make up for what the pensions themselves don’t produce in returns. Better returns from pension fund investments can save city government a significant amount of money that could be used for other priorities or put aside for a crisis.

Those investment decisions can also be made to further other goals than simply the funds’ bottom lines, though the returns and overall financial health of the pension funds are the comptroller’s main city charter-mandated responsibility.

Author(s): Carmen Vintro

Publication Date: 17 Sept 2021

Publication Site: Gotham Gazette