York County could strengthen pension protection
Glenn Smith(Photo: Submitted)
York County Retirement Board heard presentations from two law firms on monitoring pension investments.
(Undated) — Incoming York County Solicitor Glenn Smith will have his work cut out for him when he officially starts the job next month and reviews proposals that could double the number of firms monitoring its pension account.
But first there are booklets full of legalese on what the two firms that made presentations Wednesday specialize in and their terms for how they would handle legal action. The commissioners made several comments to Smith, who attended the meeting to watch, that he would have his hands full.
In an abridged presentation that Donald A. Broggi, a partner at the Connecticut-based law firm Scott+Scott Attorneys at Law, LLP, said could have taken several hours, he said he was proud of a summary page he had written that “you don’t need a JD to read,” referring to the Juris Doctor terminal degree for lawyers. His firm’s clients include the pension system of the state of Ohio.
Next up was Evan J. Kaufman, an attorney at the Long Island law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP. Among his firm’s accomplishments is serving as chief counsel in litigating the Enron scandal that led to a settlement of $7.3 billion, the largest securities fraud class-action recovery in history, he said.
York County Controller Robb Green said that while the county has had great success in litigating problematic companies its pension fund invests in – including Avon Products, Inc., Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and others, he said – it is behind the times by only employing two law firms, both Pennsylvania firms, to monitor the companies it invests in.
He added that many counties are employing four firms to monitor their investments, and York County’s pension’s status as one of the continually top-performing county pensions in the commonwealth should keep it ahead of the curve.
Hiring the presenting firms or any possible others won’t be a “done deal” until it is made as a motion and approved by the York County Retirement Board.
In other financial news, the Retirement Board revoked much of what it did in Dec. 16 to rebalance its investment fund except for its reduction in fixed investments of $3.5 million from C.S. McKee, which was reinvested in Black Rock Global Allocation.
C.S. McKee, based in Pittsburgh, was put on watch by the board back in November for a roughly four-and-a-half year run of underwhelming performance.
Instead, the board followed the recommendations of its financial manager, Lee Martin of the West Chester-based investment management firm Peirce Park Group, to redeem a total of $15 million from three accounts – the Vanguard REIT Index, C.S. McKee and Emerald – and invest it into the J.P. Morgan Strategic Property Real Estate Fund.
This article is part of a content-sharing partnership between WITF and the York Daily Record
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