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Riley: Magaziner Drowning in Raimondo’s Hedge Funds Gone Wild

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Michael G. Riley, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

Riley: Raimondo's legacy and love of hedge funds is Magaziner's problem to address -- or face the repercussions if not.

The results are in. Both the Providence Pension Plan and the State of Rhode Island Pension Plan were gainers as the S&P500 benchmark index has now rallied 13% from its February lows to a whisker away from new all-time record highs. Pension funds in general have improved but have trailed the performance of the market. Rhode Island is no exception.

Despite near record highs and a 5 year S&P 500 index gain of 57.69% or 9.54%, the State Pension Fund designed by Governor Raimondo and now managed by the inexperienced Seth Magaziner has negative returns over the past fiscal year and the Raimondo /Magaziner Portfolio returned just 5.3% since Raimondo took charge 5 years ago. No doubt 5.3% is a horrible return, given both the plan return assumption of 7.5% compounded and the tail winds of the last 5 years of a major bull market.

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Time for Magaziner to throw Raimondo completely under bus?

A few weeks back Magaziner touted his recent competitive bond auction as an obvious fix saving RI taxpayers millions of dollars. He said it had not been done in 10 years. OUCH!

That backhanded criticism of Raimondo’s debt management in the years prior to Seth Magaziner had to sting. Didn’t Raimondo understand competitive auctions or did she prefer to direct underwritings to donors or future donors?

Now Magaziner is drowning in her hedge fund experiment gone wild. I have huge doubt that Magaziner can produce great results on his own but, If I were in his spot I would substantially change the current portfolio and rid the fund of all high fee hedge funds, Private Equity funds and high fee Real Estate investments.

I don’t expect Magaziner to ask me but I would again recommend firing the consultant CliffWater. As far as the CIO Anne Marie Fink goes she shows no creativity or guts in portfolio management preferring to hide behind consultants and an ugly reliance on JP Morgan style “Modern Portfolio Theory” that both Fink and Raimondo are devotees of. Magaziner should take charge and live or die on his own decisions.

A word about Modern Portfolio Theory

Clearly Fink was hired by Treasurer and now Governor Raimondo out of JP Morgan because of her devotion to Modern Portfolio Theory. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked and Magaziner should consider the advice of some of the world’s greatest investors. I am referring to Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. As a fan and frequent shareholder of Buffett, Munger and their philosophy of investing, I have attended many of the Berkshire Hathaway confabs in Omaha. I have heard them repeatedly criticize the very theory being used by Rhode Island, known as MPT. The Raimondo interpretation of MPT has us exposed to Puerto Rican debt and high yield energy debt. Does that sound prudent or appropriate for our retirees? Additionally Buffett and Munger have railed against high management fees of Hedge Funds and Private Equity Funds alike. Raimondo got that wrong. They would also laugh at the discount rate of 7.5% as unrealistic. Magaziner remains delusional.

Here are some favorite quotes of mine and a link to a 2009 article about Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) and Efficient Market Hypothesis(EMH):

Mr. Buffett said he was once asked by a student from the University of Chicago, a hub of modern portfolio theory, “What are we learning that’s most wrong?” To which Charlie Munger quipped, “How do you handle that in one session?”

"...Berkshire's whole record has been achieved without paying one ounce of attention to the efficient market theory in its hard form. And not one ounce of attention to the descendants of that idea, which came out of academic economics and went into corporate finance and morphed into such obscenities as the capital asset pricing model, which we also paid no attention to," said Charlie Munger at UC Santa Barbara back in 2003.

"Naturally the disservice done students and gullible investment professionals who have swallowed EMT has been an extraordinary service to us and other followers of (Benjamin) Graham. In any sort of a contest -- financial, mental, or physical -- it's an enormous advantage to have opponents who have been taught that it's useless to even try. From a selfish point of view, Grahamites should probably endow chairs to ensure the perpetual teaching of EMT," said Warren Buffett.

Lawrence Summers, President Obama’s special economic advisor, in a prior position was part of the team brought in to unwind and bail out Long Term Capital Management. He stated on several occasions that the Efficient Market Theory is the worst thing that has ever happened to the investment process.

Michael G. Riley is vice chair at Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, and is managing member and founder of Coastal Management Group, LLC. Riley has 35 years of experience in the financial industry, having managed divisions of PaineWebber, LETCO, and TD Securities (TD Bank). He has been quoted in Barron’s, Wall Street Transcript, NY Post, and various other print media and also appeared on NBC News, Yahoo TV, and CNBC.

Related Slideshow: Timeline - Rhode Island Pension Reform

GoLocalProv breaks down the sequence of events that have played out during Rhode Island's State Employee Pension Fund reform.

2005-2010

In the five years before Raimondo was elected, pension changes included a decrease in established retirement age from 65 to 62, increased eligibility to retire, and modified COLA adjustments.

Read the Senate Fiscal Office's Brief here.

(Photo: 401(k) 2013, Flickr)

January 2009

Governor Don Carcieri makes pension reform a top priority in his emergency budget plan. His three-point plan included:

1. An established minimum retirment age of 59 for all state and municipal employees.

2. Elimination of cost-of-living increases.

3. Conversion of new hires into a 401(k) style plan.

See WPRI's coverage of Carcieri's proposal here.

2009

Rhode Island increased mandatory employee contributions for new and current employees. New Mexico was the only other state to mandate current employees to increase their contributions.

Read the NCSL report here

(Photo: FutUndBeidl, Flickr)

2010

Rhode Island's state administered public employee pension system only held 48% of the assets to cover future payments to its emplyees.

"This system as designed today is fundamentally unsustainable, and it is in your best interest to fix it" - Gina Raimondo

Check out Wall Street Journal's coverage here.

November 2010

Gina Raimondo defeats opponent Kernan King in the election for General Treasurer of Rhode Island using her platform to reform the structure of Rhode Island's public employee pension system. She received 201,625 votes, more than any other politician on the 2010 Rhode Island ballot.

April 2011

Raimondo leads effort to reduce the state’s assumed rate of return on pension investments from 8.25 to 7.5%.

Her proposal includes plans to suspend the Cost of Living Adjustment (which allows for raises corresponding with rates of inflation for retirees), changing the retirement age to match Social Security ages, and adding a defined contribution plan.

May 2011

Raimondo releases “Truth in Numbers”, a report detailing the pension crisis and offering possible solutions. She continues to work to raise public support for her proposal.

"Decades of ignoring actuarial assumptions led to lower taxpayer & employee contributions being made into the system." - Gina Raimondo (Truth in Numbers)

Read GoLocalProv's analysis of the report here.

Read the Truth in Numbers report here.

October 2011

Governor Lincoln Chafee and General Treasurer Gina Raimondo present their pension reform legislation proposal before a joint session of the General Assembly.

“Our fundamental goal throughout this process has been to provide retirement security through reforms that are fair to the three main interested parties: retirees, current employees and the taxpayer…I join the General Treasurer in urging the General Assembly to take decisive action and adopt these reforms.”- Gov. Lincoln Chafee

October 2011

Head of Rhode Island firefighters’ union accuses Raimondo of “cooking the books” to create a pension problem where one did not exist. Paul Valletta Jr. states that Raimondo raised Rhode Islanders’ assumed mortality rate to increase liability to the state, using data from 1994 instead of updated information from 2008, and lowered the anticipated rate of return on state investments.

“You’re going after the retirees! In this economic time, how could you possibly take a pension away?” Paul Valletta Jr (Head of RI Firefighters' Union)

Read more from the firefighters' battle with Raimondo here.

Check out the New York Times' take on RI's pension crisis here.

November 17, 2011

The Rhode Island Retirement Security Act (RIRSA) is enacted by the General Assembly with bipartisan support in both chambers. RIRSA’s passing is slated to reduce the unfunded liability of RI’s pension system and increase its funding status by $3 billion and 60% respectively, level contributions to the pension system by taxpayers, save municipalities $100 million through lessened contributions to teacher and MERS pension systems, and lower the cost of borrowing.

Read more from GoLocalProv here.

November 18, 2011

Governor Lincoln Chafee signs RIRSA into law. According to a December 2011 Brown University poll, 60% of Rhode Island residents support the reform. Following its enactment, Raimondo holds regional sessions to educate public employees on the effects of the legislation on their retirement benefits.

Read about how Rhode Islanders react to RIRSA here.

January 2012

Raimondo hosts local workshops to explain the pension reforms across Rhode Island. She also receives national attention for her contributions to the state’s pension reforms. The reforms are given praise and many believe Rhode Island will serve as a template for other States’ future pension reforms.

Read about the pension workshop here.

Read Raimondo's feature in Institutional Investor here.

March - April 2012

Raimondo opposes Governor Chafee’s proposal to cut pension-funded deposits. She continued to provide workshops on the pension reforms.

“The present law is sound fiscal policy and should remain unchanged.” -George Nee (Rhode Island AFL-CIO President)

See WPRI's coverage of Chafee's attempt to cut pension fund deposits here.

December 5, 2012

Raimondo publicly opposes Governor Chafee’s meetings with union leaders in an effort to avoid judicial rulings on the pension reform package. In response, Chafee issues a statement supporting the negotiations.

Read more about Raimondo's opposition here.

Read about Chafee's statement https://www.golocalprov.com/news/new-chafee-issues-statement-supporting-pension-negotiations/">here.

March 2013

Led by the Rhode Island State Association of Fire Fighters, unions protest the 2011 pension reform outside of the Omni Providence where Governor Lincoln Chafee and General Treasurer Gina Raimondo conduct a national conference of bond investors.

Read about Raimondo's discussion of distressed municipalities here.

April 2013

The pension plan comes under increased scrutiny as a result of the involvement of hedge funds and private equity firms. Reports show that $200 million of the state pension fund was lost in 2012.

"In short, impressive educational credentials and limited knowledge of investment industry realities made Raimondo ideally suited to champion private equity’s public pension money grab." - Ted Seidle (Forbes)

Read GoLocalProv's coverage of the State Pension Fund's losses here.

Read Ted Seidle's criticism of Raimondo in Forbes.

June 2013

Reports show that the State’s retirement system increased in 2013 by $20 million despite the reforms being put into effect the previous year.

Read GoLocalProv's investigation into the rising pension costs here.

September 2013

Matt Taibbi publishes an article in Rolling Stone detailing Raimondo’s use of hedge funds as a questionably ethical tool to aid with pension reform.

Read Taibbi's article in Rolling Stone.

Read GoLocalProv's response to Taibbi here.

October 2013

As Raimondo eyes the role of Governor of Rhode Island in 2014, more behind-the-curtain information about the 2011 pension reform comes to light.

Read more from GoLocalProv about the players in the pension battle here.

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