New Jersey Bill, Now on Christie’s Desk, Would Expand Pay-to-Play Rules for Pension Investments

shaking hands

With all the drama surrounding New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s latest round of pension changes, one big pension-related development has been overlooked: on Monday, state lawmakers approved a bill that would expand pay-to-play rules as they relate to pension investments.

The bill, which would increase transparency around fees paid to private investment managers, was sent to Christie’s desk on Monday.

More from Philly.com:

[The bill] would expand restrictions on investments of state pension funds with outside money managers who donate to national political committees.

The legislation also would require the state Treasury Department to regularly publish reports disclosing fees paid to private managers who invest state pension funds.

Pay-to-play rules already prohibit the Division of Investment from awarding contracts to firms or investment managers who have donated to New Jersey political parties or campaigns in the preceding two years.

A 2010 federal law imposed a similar ban. Under that law, the Securities and Exchange Commission in June ordered Wayne-based TL Ventures Inc. to repay $250,000 in pension fees collected from Philadelphia and Pennsylvania after learning the firm’s founder had donated to Mayor Nutter and then-Gov. Tom Corbett.

But managers can still donate to national committees such as the Republican Governors Association or Democratic National Committee, which can spend money on and influence state politics. Legislation passed Monday by the Assembly on a 53-15 vote would close that loophole by extending the State Investment Council’s pay-to-play regulations to cover investors’ donations to national political committees.

The bill passed the Senate in October on a 25-8 vote, with seven abstentions.

Lawmakers believe the SEC pay-to-play rules are too lenient.

State pension officials, however, say the rules could harm the fund’s alternative investment portfolio; the fee disclosure requirement runs the risk of dissuading some investment managers from doing business with the fund.

Alternatives account for 28 percent of New Jersey’s pension investments.

 

Photo by Truthout.org via Flickr CC License

Audit: Massachusetts Gov. Didn’t Violate Pay-to-Play Rules With Donation That Preceded Pension Investment

shaking hands

In 2011, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker donated $10,000 to the New Jersey Republican State Committee.

Less than a year later, New Jersey committed $25 million in pension money to General Catalyst Partners for management – the firm where Baker was an executive.

The transaction raised the red flags of a pay-to-play violation.

But an audit released yesterday cleared Baker of any wrongdoing.

From the Associated Press:

A New Jersey treasury audit has found Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker did not break pay-to-play rules when he donated to Republicans here in 2011.

[…]

New Jerseys regulations bar the state from investing with a firm whose managers made political contributions within a two-year window. The audit says while Baker was an investment professional, he did not provide the kinds of services the policy prohibits.

[…]

The audit also suggests Baker and General Catalyst forcefully resisted the possibility of any wrongdoing. For example the firm wrote to the auditor in May 2014 that “Mr. Baker has never been an executive officer, owner or other control person of GC and has never solicited investors when GC raised funds.”

Baker himself hired the law firm Covington & Burling, which expressed a similar view, the audit said.

While the report recommends the state should consider strengthening its due-diligence procedures, the audit said the State Investment Council, the body that sets investment policy, reported it met those standards.

The audit was released and presented at the Thursday meeting of the State Investment Council.

 

Photo by Truthout.org via Flickr CC License

Firms Managing Illinois Pension Money May Have Skirted Pay-to-Play Rules By Donating To Rauner Campaign

Bruce Rauner

Over the course of his campaign, Illinois governor-elect Bruce Rauner accepted contributions from executives from firms that manage portions of the state’s pension money, according to a new report from David Sirota.

Those contributions may violate SEC pay-to-play rules, under which investment firms can’t make donations to politicians that have any influence—direct or indirect—over the hiring of firms to handle pension investments.

As Illinois governor, Rauner will have that influence – the governor has the power to appoint trustees to the state’s pension boards.

More from David Sirota on the donations:

During his gubernatorial campaign, Rauner raised millions of dollars from executives in the financial sector — and, despite the pay-to-play rule, some of the money came from executives at firms affiliated with funds that receive state pension investments. That includes:

$1,000 from Mesirow Financial senior managing director Mark Kmety and $2,000 from Mesirow Financial managing director David Wanger. ISBI’s 2013 annual report lists Mesirow Financial as a hedge fund-of-fund manager for the pension system, and lists $271 million in holdings in Mesirow investment vehicles. In an emailed statement, a Mesirow spokeswoman told IBTimes that a separate branch of Mesirow works with the Illinois pension system and that therefore “we do not believe these contributions violate the pay to play laws.” Neither Rauner donor from Mesirow Financial “has any relationship with and/or receives any compensation from any state entity, nor do they pursue state business,” she wrote.

$2,500 from Sofinnova general partner James Healy. TRS lists Sofinnova as a private equity manager. The system’s 2013 annual report says the firm manages $8.1 million of state pension money, and was paid more than $900,000 in fees that year. In June, TRS committed to invest another $50 million of state pension cash in Sofinnova. Healy did not respond to IBTimes’ interview request.

$5,000 from Northern Trust’s Senior Vice President Brayton Alley. Illinois TRS lists Northern Trust Investments as an equity manager. The system’s 2013 annual report says Northern Trust manages $2.3 billion of state money, and made $548,000 in fees from the system that year. A spokesman for the firm told IBTimes, “We are aware of the obligations under various Illinois and federal laws and regulations” and “we are unaware of any violation to such requirements.”

$9,600 from employees of the real estate firm CBRE. The 2013 annual reports of TRS and ISBI show a combined $184 million worth of state pension investments in CBRE investment vehicles. A representative for CBRE told IBTimes that the employees are not covered by the SEC rule because they are not involved in state pension business and not employed by the subsidiary of CBRE that does pension investment work.

More than $90,000 in in-kind contributions from John Buck of the John Buck Company, which is listed as an investment manager for TRS. A spokesman for TRS, David Urbanek, told IBTimes that the pension system’s investment in the John Buck Company “is now in wind-down mode” and added that “the company is no longer actively managing TRS money.” A representative for the John Buck company said, “We do not manage money for TRS.”

While some of the contributions are relatively small, the SEC recently prosecuted its first pay-to-play case over donations totaling just $4,500. SEC sanctions can be strong: The rule can compel investment managers to return all fees they have collected from the pension systems after the political contributions were made.

Illinois state law also restricts contributions from state contractors to candidates for governor, though the executive director of ISBI, William Atwood, told IBTimes that the pension systems are exempt from the statute.

Specifics of the SEC rule in question, as explained by law firm Bracewell & Giuliani:

Rule 206 (4)-5, which was adopted in 2010, prohibits investment advisers from providing compensatory advisory services to a government client for a period of two years following a campaign contribution from the firm, or from defined investment advisers, to any government officials, or political candidates in a position to influence the selection or retention of advisers to manage public pension funds or other government client assets. Some de minimus contributions are permitted, topping out at $350 if the contributor is eligible to vote for the candidate, and the contribution is from the person’s personal funds.

Read Sirota’s entire report here.

 

By Steven Vance [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

State Street Being Probed by SEC, Department of Justice For Possible Misconduct While Soliciting Pension Business

SEC Building

An interesting piece of information was tucked away in a new State Street Corp. regulatory filing.

In an SEC filing filed Monday, State Street said it was being subpoenaed by the SEC and the Department of Justice for information related to the way the bank solicits business from public pension funds.

State Street admits in the filing that “in at least one instance” a consultant employed by the firm made political contributions while bidding for pension business.

From the filing:

We are responding to subpoenas from the Department of Justice and the SEC for information regarding our solicitation of asset servicing business of public retirement plans. We have retained counsel to conduct a review of these matters, including our use of consultants and lobbyists in our solicitation of business of public retirement plans and, in at least one instance, political contributions by one of our consultants during and after a public bidding process. While we are unable to predict the outcome of these matters, adverse outcomes could have a material adverse effect on our business and reputation.

Depending on the nature of the political contribution, the action could violate SEC pay-to-play rules.

Under the SEC’s current rules, investment advisors can’t make donations to politicians that have any influence—direct or indirect—over the hiring of investment firms.

Specifics of Rule 206 (4)-5, as explained by law firm Bracewell & Giuliani:

Rule 206 (4)-5, which was adopted in 2010, prohibits investment advisers from providing compensatory advisory services to a government client for a period of two years following a campaign contribution from the firm, or from defined investment advisers, to any government officials, or political candidates in a position to influence the selection or retention of advisers to manage public pension funds or other government client assets. Some de minimus contributions are permitted, topping out at $350 if the contributor is eligible to vote for the candidate, and the contribution is from the person’s personal funds.

Businessweek reached a State Street spokewoman for comment:

“We are cooperating with governmental authorities and have retained counsel to conduct an internal review of these matters,” said Alicia Curran Sweeney, a spokeswoman for State Street, while declining to comment further on confidential discussions with regulators.

Earlier this year, investment firm TL Ventures was busted when an employee was found to have made a political donation to Pennsylvania’s governor while the firm was working with the Philadelphia Board of Pensions. The consequences: the firm has to give up over $250,000 in fees it earned from the work, and pay a $35,000 fine.

Pension Scandals Put Christie In Deep Hole

Chris Christie pension scandal

Over at Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith has written a great post recapping the recent pay-to-play allegations surrounding Chris Christie and Robert Grady and untangling the web of relationships at the heart of the scandal. The post, in full, is below.

________________

By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism

Memo to Chris Christie: when you are in a hole, quit digging.

If you have any appetite for political slugfests, an unusual one is playing out in New Jersey. Former Pando, now International Business Times reporter David Sirota has been digging into dubious connections between officials in various states who have influence over pension fund investments and their well-heeled Wall Street connections and patrons.

To give a very short summary of Sirota’s biggest current story, the IBT journalist has uncovered questionable connections with two prominent figures, Charlie Baker, who is a Republican gubernatorial candidate in Massachusetts, and former New Jersey pension fund chief Robert Grady.

First, a short background on the Baker story: Sirota showed how that Baker made a $10,000 donation to the New Jersey Republican Party shortly before Christie officials gave Baker’s firm a pension management contract. That donation ran afoul of the Garden State’s pay-to-play rules that bar contributions from executives and partners of entities that manage state pension funds.

New Jersey launched an investigation into Sirota’s charges and announced that as a result, it was exiting the contract with Baker’s firm.

In a sign that Sirota is drawing blood, Christie himself, as well as members of his administration, have launched personal attacks on Sirota rather than making honest rebuttals to his charges (another strategy has been to misrepresent the stringent requirements of the state pay-to-play law). The paper of record in Massachusetts, the Boston Globe, has yet to deign to report on this scandal.

Sirota has also been probing the relationships among state pension fund investments and the holdings of long-standing Christie friend and pension fund overseer Robert Grady. The Christie administration has denied, forcefully, that Grady had any financial interest in firms that benefitted from New Jersey pension fund investments on his watch. That word “interest” is critical, because that’s the term of art in the New Jersey pay-to-play law. And in reading the discussion that follows, bearing in mind that New Jersey rules bar state officials from “being involved” in “any official manner” in which they have direct or indirect personal or financial interest.*

From the article:

Grady was pursuing a new strategy, shifting money into hedge funds and private equity holdings in the name of diversification and higher returns. He was now pushing to entrust up to $1.8 billion of New Jersey pension money to the Blackstone Group, one of the largest players in private equity.

But one special feature of that Blackstone bet underscores the interlocking relationships at play as states increasingly rely on the counsel and management of Wall Street institutions to invest their pension dollars: One of the private equity funds New Jersey was investing in – a pool of money called Blackstone Capital Partners VI – claimed among its investors a Wyoming-based company named Cheyenne Capital. That company’s list of partners included one Robert Grady.

In short, Grady was pushing to invest New Jersey public money in the same Blackstone fund in which his own firm was investing — without disclosing that fact to N.J. officials.

There are two legs to Sirota’s charges. One is that Grady’s firm looks to have gotten preferential treatment from Blackstone. Documents from an SEC investigation state that Cheyenne made a total investment in the Blackstone fund of $2.69 million. That is well below its minimum investment requirement of $20 million.

Due to the opacity of these investments, it is impossible to ascertain whether Cheyenne might have gotten other concessions, such as reduced fees in the fund itself, by lowering the management fees or the performance fees paid by investors in the fund.

Another way that private equity funds reward preferred parties is by giving them co-investment rights, which allows them to invest in the portfolio companies directly and bypass fees at the fund level. We explained how that works last year:

Let’s look at a particularly egregious conflict involving the Boston law firm Ropes & Gray. Ropes is Boston’s ultimate Brahmin firm, with a pedigree dating back to 1865. Past partners including Henry Cabot Lodge and Archibald Cox.

Industry insiders report that Ropes does the legal work for Harvard’s investments in private equity funds… Ropes & Gray also represents two of Boston’s leading PE firms: Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners

The March 6, 1998 Federal Register contained an application to the SEC by Ropes & Gray to form an in-house 1940 Act “investment company” that would be owned by the employees of the firm in order to invest their capital. Critically, as part of its investment company application, Ropes sought and was granted by the SEC an exemption from the normally comprehensive and ongoing public reporting requirements to the SEC that investment companies normally provide.

How has RGIP been investing the Ropes partners’ money? Thanks to the SEC waiver, it’s impossible to know everything. But RGIP appears regularly as an investor in Bain and Thomas H. Lee (another top Boston-based PE fund) deals.

Pay attention, because the distinction I’m about to make is critical to understanding how stinky this is. I am not talking about RGIP being an investor in Bain and Thomas H. Lee funds. To the extent that were the case, RGIP’s interests would be aligned with Harvard as a fellow fund investor, since they’d be in all the same deals, be subject to the same gains and losses, and presumably pay the same or similar fees.

Instead, Ropes & Gray, Harvard’s counsel, is investing alongside Bain and Thomas H. Lee funds in which Harvard is an investor. From an economic perspective, Ropes & Gray is investing ahead of Harvard, because it is not paying the fees a limited partnership investor pays. Moreover, it may well be in an even more advantaged position by virtue by getting access to only the best deals (as in cherrypicking within the funds**) and could potentially better rights on other fronts than its client.

Let me stress: we have no evidence that Cheyenne got this sort of sweetheart deal. But we also can’t be certain that it didn’t. The cult of secrecy around private equity investments means the public, including New Jersey taxpayers, has no idea of knowing, beyond the concession on the minimum investment, whether Grady’s firm got other sweeteners as a result of the New Jersey investment in the same fund. And that is precisely why the New Jersey statues are so draconian on the issue of possible personal and financial conflicts of interest.

Grady provided strenuous denials that he has an “interest”; those statements don’t pass the smell test. As private equity industry expert Eileen Appelbaum remarked:

“Whether or not he has a direct piece of the action from this particular investment, he is a partner in the company that is going to benefit from the investment,” said Eileen Appelbaum, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of the book “Private Equity at Work.” “If the investment in Blackstone turns out to be profitable, his company is going to benefit from that.”

And don’t kid yourself that Grady was too remote to have had anything to do with the pension fund investment in Blackstone VI:

State Investment Council records show that Grady himself made the formal motion to approve the Blackstone deal, and then voted for it along with most members of the council. Former State Investment Council member Jim Marketti told International Business Times he had no recollection of Grady disclosing his firm’s investment in Blackstone at the time Grady had the council vote on the Blackstone investments.

Another questionable relationship involves the same Blackstone fund’s salvage of Knight Capital. Grady was on the board of Stifel, which was a significant customer of Knight and also joined in the rescue.

The details:

In August 2012, Blackstone Capital Partners VI used money from its investors to finance a deal involving Knight Capital Group, according to SEC documents. Knight had notably suffered losses in the wake of news that a computer glitch in its electronic trading system had sent share prices plummeting on the New York Stock Exchange. The infusion of Blackstone money stopped the bleeding. Blackstone had been joined in its rescue of Knight by another firm, Stifel Financial, which later acquired a piece of Knight’s trading and sales operations. Among the members of Stifel’s board was Grady, according to corporate documents.

According to SEC documents, Grady also owns more than 10,000 shares of the company’s stock, and N.J. financial disclosure forms show Grady is compensated for his position at Stifel.

In short, Blackstone Capital Partners VI applied its investors’ money — including funds from the New Jersey pension system — to co-invest with Stifel, whose board included among its ranks the overseer of New Jersey’s pension investments.

Does this look arm’s length to you? Factor this into your assessment:

[Christopher] Santarelli, the New Jersey Treasury department spokesman, said Grady’s State Investment Council would have no knowledge or influence over how Blackstone opted to invest the money in its fund. Yet a New Jersey investment official previously declared that state officials often influence the financial decisions of the private equity funds in which the state invests.

“We’re a large player,” said then-Division of Investment executive director Timothy Walsh, in a May 2011 interview with the Bergen Record. “We have impact.” He told the newspaper that state pension officials sit on advisory boards for most of the private equity firms with which New Jersey invests, adding that New Jersey’s pension system is better able to influence private equity firms’ decisions than those of companies whose stock it owns.

The New Jersey state pension system listed 600,000 shares of Stifel in its portfolio in 2013, according to the New Jersey Department of Treasury’s annual report. Stifel executives made $15,000 worth of contributions to the New Jersey Republican Party in 2011, according to campaign finance disclosures.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who heads the state’s Select Committee on Investigation, is pushing for an official probe into l’affaire Grady.

Even though it seems unlikely in the cesspool of New Jersey politics, it is still entirely possible that Robert Grady’s conduct regarding his dealings with Blackstone, both with the fund investment and the Knight rescue, were on the up and up. But even so, he clearly looks to have violated the state’s stringent laws about conflicts of interest.

And this case serves as yet another object lesson in how private equity’s draconian secrecy policies can foster corruption. Even if it didn’t actually occur here, it would be easy for it to have taken place.

___
*Clearly, this restriction would not apply to cases where a pension fund executive held a public stock and a New Jersey pension fund bought shares in the same stock. The impact of the New Jersey buy, if any, would be too small and short term for the state official to derive any benefit.

New Jersey Lawmaker Pushes For Stricter Pay-To-Play Rules For Pension Investments

Two silhouetted men changing hands in front of an American flag

SEC rules prevent pension funds from investing with firms that have made political contributions to politicians with any control over the pension fund’s investment decisions.

But a New Jersey Senator wants the state to go even further. Reported by NorthJersey.com:

The law that restricts the state pension fund from investing in firms whose investment managers make political contributions to New Jersey candidates should be expanded to include donations to national political groups, a legislator said Wednesday.

Sen. Shirley Turner, D-Mercer, announced her intentions to broaden the state’s pay-to-play law a day after the Division of Investment confirmed the pension system had sold its stake in a venture capital fund with ties to a Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate who donated to the New Jersey GOP.

[…]

When the pension system approves an alternative investment — including venture capital firms and hedge funds — those firms are required to fill out disclosures listing the managers of the particular fund New Jersey is investing with and whether those individuals have made political contributions. But the state’s conflict of interest law does not cover political donations to groups outside New Jersey, like the Republican Governors Association, which Governor Christie heads.

“The method of investment should be selected based on performance and merit, not because of campaign contributions and investments should be made in the best interests of our retirees,” said Turner, whose district includes a significant number of state workers, said Wednesday in a statement. “There shouldn’t be even the appearance of political favorites.”

This is a hot-button issue in New Jersey. One union, the New Jersey AFL-CIO, filed an ethics complaint last week asking whether political donations have influence pension investments.

The issue was also raised at the meeting of the State Investment Council on Tuesday.

 

Photo by Truthout.org via Flickr CC License

Union Files SEC Complaint Alleging Pension Pay-To-Play In North Carolina

Janet Cowell

A North Carolina labor group has filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC over what they believe to be a violation of the SEC’s pay-to-play rules.

The group alleges that Erskine Bowles held a fundraiser for state Treasurer Janet Cowell at his home in 2011. Just weeks later, Bowles’ investment firm was chosen to handle investments for North Carolina’s pension funds, of which Janet Cowell is the sole trustee. From Bloomberg:

Former White House official Erskine Bowles was accused by a North Carolina workers’ association of violating political fundraising rules for money managers.

Carousel Capital, the firm Bowles co-founded in 1996 and where he is listed as a senior adviser, was selected to manage state pension funds a few weeks after a June 2011 fundraiser for North Carolina Treasurer Janet Cowell was held at his home, the State Employees Association of North Carolina said today in a whistleblower complaint to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The fundraiser violated the SEC’s pay-to-play rule that bars investment advisers from managing state funds for two years following a campaign contribution to political candidates or officials in a position to influence the selection of advisers to manage public pension funds, according to SEANC’s complaint.

SEANC, which has about 55,000 members, also questioned whether Bowles’ wife, Crandall Bowles, was in violation of pay-to-play rules because she is on the board of JPMorgan Chase & Co., which manages several hundred millions of dollars for the $87 billion North Carolina state pension fund, which Cowell oversees.

David Sirota talked to Cowell and Bowles about the allegations:

In a statement emailed to IBTimes, Cowell’s spokesperson Schorr Johnson said:

“More than two years ago, the Department of State Treasurer verified with outside legal counsel that neither Erskine nor Crandall Bowles were covered by SEC prohibition. The Department then took it a step further by ensuring contractually with Carousel that they were compliant with this SEC rule. If Carousel failed to comply with the rule, the investment would likely end.”

In a previous statement to IBTimes, Erskine Bowles said, “I have had no active role [in Carousel] since 2005 (and) I am not involved in the management of the firm nor do I [have an] office there.” He also said the fundraiser was held at his home by his wife, Crandall, but that he was not affiliated with the event.