CALPERS' Chiefs' Resignations Ignite Suspicion

Just days after Russell Reed announced his departure from the post of Chief Investment Officer of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, Fred Buenrostro, the CEO, followed suit. Two months ago, Christianna Wood, Senior Investment Officer of Global Equities resigned. All of the above claim to be pursuing greener pastures in the private investing community. It is undoubtably true that they will be paid far more for their services in the private sector, but I have to wonder if their concurrent departures were somehow linked to CALPERS' investment performance. CALPERS put up very nice performance numbers through the last fiscal year, which ended June 2007. Unfortunately, we have no numbers since then and June 2007 was right before the credit markets began to melt-down causing losses to reverberate through nearly every single asset class. CALPERS is a noted investor in alternative investments, so I have to wonder how much performance has been dinged by the turmoil in the markets since June 2007. With only two months to go before the next fiscal year end, if I had to report lousy investing performance to a bunch of angry state employees who are depending on me for their retirement incomes, I'd be going where the grass is greener too.