California Public Employees’ Retirement System‘s chief investment officer has warned that board comments and negative media coverage over fee transparency is making it difficult for his team to invest in private equity.
In the public comments to the US’s largest public pension’s investment committee on Tuesday, Ted Eliopoulos said: “Over the course of the past two years, and frequently in these monthly investment committee meetings, CalPERS staff is attacked and denigrated for our decision to invest in these funds and for the manner and transparency of our reporting of the fees, carried interest and expenses attached to these funds.”
“But the particular public nature and fishbowl of CalPERS may have reached a tipping point for us in private equity.”
Eliopoulos stridently defended the work of his team in demanding greater transparency from its GPs, while stressing the need for private equity’s outsized returns to meet the fund’s financial obligations.
The CIO also stressed his team’s efforts on fee transparency, noting their work in conjunction with the Institutional Limited Partners Association on a standardised approach towards fee and expense disclosure. Eliopoulos reported that ILPA invited CalPERS and small number of peers to meet with the new US Securities and Exchange Commission chair in a matter of weeks to discuss the regulatory environment surrounding private equity investing.
He added that at an off-site meeting in July the pension fund will be reviewing the private equity models available and working on building a more effective governance system for its private equity investments.
“If we are not successful in finding a better solution, the asset allocation process will need to weigh a much-reduced allocation to private equity that we would have otherwise hoped for,” he said.
The members of the committee voiced support for Eliopoulos, but fell short of proposing any solutions to the negativity towards the pension fund’s private equity activity.
“I don’t think you will find much appetite on the board in moving away from the private equity asset class,” said committee member Ron Lind. “Again, we need the returns it continues to provide.”
It was a point Eliopoulos stressed in these opening comments, citing that private equity is the only asset class which has a return forecast above 7 percent over the next ten years.
CalPERS has a total market value of $324.89 billion as of 19 June, according to its website. The pension had relationships with 81 private equity managers on 31 December 2016, according to its latest CIO Performance Report, and has previously said it wants to reduce this number to 30.
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