Apology Sent Over CalPERS Privacy Error

Pension officials with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System apologized to hundreds of thousands of retirees whose Social Security numbers were inadvertently printed on brochures mailed out last week.

Roughly 445,000 retirees across the state received the brochures announcing an upcoming election to fill a rare vacancy on the board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System. All or a portion of each person's Social Security number appeared -- without hyphens -- on the address panel.

"While it is unlikely that someone would recognize the series of numbers as being a Social Security number except you, we consider this a serious incident and will take immediate steps to ensure that such an error does not happen again," read a letter to state retirees explaining the breach.

Calpers chief welcomes credit turmoil

The investment chief of the nation’s largest public pension fund has claimed the credit crunch that began with defaults on US sub-prime mortgage loans will aid the overall health of the financial system.

Russell Read, chief investment officer of the $245 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), told Bloomberg: “The re-calibration of risk is inherently healthy and actually bodes well for investors in most markets …The moderate de-leveraging of the financial system is also healthy.”

Read said the correction would probably result in a good re-pricing of risk long term for most markets.

Read told Bloomberg that most investors believe the Federal Reserve will prevent a US recession in the US by limiting damage beyond the sub-prime mortgage market. It has already injected billions of dollars, but rumors are swirling that it may take more extreme action in the form of an emergency interest rate cut to restore equilibrium.

CalPERS Opens Investment Doors to Once-Prohibited Emerging Markets

A strategy that barred investments in politically troubled emerging market countries was scrapped Monday by trustees of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) according to this story from Plan Sponsor.com.

CalPERS had placed select emerging market countries - including Russia, China, Colombia, Egypt and Pakistan - off-limits to public equity investments based on country and market factors since 2002. However, the fund has now adopted a new principle-based policy to help guide managers in investing in these countries.

"Year by year, scores are improving, and many countries have responded to our standards for investing," said Rob Feckner, CalPERS Board President, in the press release. "These gains indicate that our permissible countries policy has improved business practices and addressed risk factors as well. Now it's time for a broader, more cost-effective approach."

A principles-based policy in lieu of a country list will result in cost savings of approximately $1 million a year in research services required to compile the list, according to CalPERS.