Placement Agents Bagged At Least $125 Million, Says CalPERS
American's largest public pension, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has shared that private investment firms ended up paying a minimum amount of $125 Million to placement agents in order to help them win contracts to manage the money in the fund.
Today, the pension fund released a document of over 5,000 pages, which had been collected from fund managers, and details when they hired middlemen and how much they were paid. As far as the fund's knowledge goes, the high paid firm was run by an ex-board member Alfred Villalobos, who bagged $58.9 Million over the past decade.
The document has managed to detail how Wall Street companies paid agents to gain access to the $260 Billion fund. US securities regulators are already investigating into the influence peddling at the country's $2 Trillion public pension program, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is looking into the alleged kickbacks which involve the state's pension.
"In light of recent questions raised about placement agents, we are working aggressively to take measures to provide transparency, adopt thoughtful reforms, and restore trust in our system”, Anne Stausboll, CalPERS’ chief executive officer.