Investigating Gina Raimondo’s Ocean State Investment Pool

GoLocalProv today published the results of an investigation into an investment pool – called the Ocean State Investment Pool – set up by Rhode Island Treasurer Gina Raimondo to help towns and cities “maximize investment returns”.

GoLocalProv writes that the fund certainly saw gains – but it also racked up investment expenses:

The investment pool is being run by Pyramis Global Advisors, LLC, a company owned by Fidelity Investments. The firm was paid a fee of $757,701 for fiscal year 2013 to manage what was by the end of the year $545.1 million in assets, according to the annual report for that year. After the fee, the pool generated a net investment income of $698,263, according to the report. (The pool earned a total of $1,450,050 in interest income that year.)

For the first three months of the pool’s existence—from March to June 2012—Fidelity Investments fetched a fee of $199,690, almost as much as the $448,680 in interest earned by the pool, according to the last annual report.

[…]

Pyramis’ fee ranges from .138 percent to .148 percent of the average net assets. The rates for the fiscal years 2012 and 2013 were on the higher end of that range, at .147 and .148 percent, respectively. The rates decrease as assets increase, meaning that the more money that’s in the pool, the lower the cost.

More on the creation and purpose of the Ocean State Investment Pool, from GoLocalProv:

Known as the Ocean State Investment Pool, the program was launched in the spring of 2012. Two years later, just three municipalities have signed up: Bristol, Cranston, and Lincoln. The remaining six governmental members are all state entities and include the state pension fund and the Rhode Island Student Loan Authority, for which the treasurer is a board member. Money from the state general fund also accounts for more than half of the assets in the fund.

The Ocean State Investment Pool was designed to help cities and towns maximize investment returns on so-called liquid assets—cash that cannot be invested over the long-term because it needs to be used for day-to-day expenses, like payroll.

GoLocalProv reached out to several cities and towns, asking why they had not signed up.

Answers varied. In Warwick, a city official said the investment pool does not meet all the city’s criteria for its liquid investments. William DePasquale, the acting chief of staff for Mayor Scott Avedisian, said that after the 2008 recession the city had a adopted a policy of only making liquid investments that were FDIC-backed. For that reason, he said the investment pool was not considered by the city.

Read the entire investigation here.

Photo by TaxRebate.org.uk