On October 22, 2024, Comptroller Lander announced a proposal to curtail the activities of private equity firms that enter into future contracts with three of the NYC pension funds. Police and Fire funds are not part of the proposal.
Conceptually this is a positive effort in dealing with climate change. It is, however, not possible to put into effect.
I have been critical of private equity investments for a long time. They are expensive, high risk, illiquid, and, on average, less effective than the S/P 500 index. They are also black box operations that limited partners have no control over. Limited partners, like the pension funds, commit money to the partnerships and hopefully many years later get their money back and possibly some positive return.
The pension fund trustees have no access to the private equity contracts that the Comptroller signs with private equity partnerships. They are “trade secrets”. Once the Comptroller signs the private equity contract, he has no idea what investment decisions that the general partner makes. He also cannot terminate the contract. The idea of restricting the general partner’s decision is not possible.
I will give Lander the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is not aware of the workings of private equity. That is, however, a scary assumption concerning for the NYC Comptroller.
A serious climate change initiative would be to no longer enter into new private equity contracts. It would also be a money saver.
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