State Retirement Systems doing fine despite troubling market conditions with AIG

Officials with two of the state’s largest public retirement systems — the Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana and Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System — said late last week that only small portions of their investment portfolios deal with AIG.

Bobby Beale, chief investment officer for the state employees’ system, or LASERS, said the problems facing AIG happen with other securities from day-to-day and week-to-week.

LASERS Executive Director Cindy Rougeou said there have been no major disruptions because of AIG’s financial crisis. The system’s actuarial return on investments is at 8.5 percent, exceeding their target of 8.25 percent, she said.

Beale and Philip Griffith, chief investment officer for the teachers’ system, or TRSL, both said their systems’ investment portfolios are well diversified, which mitigates the effects of any such hiccups in the market.