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From P&I Online: North Carolina Considers End to Sole Trustee Role

By HAZEL BRADFORD

The number of public pension systems with a sole trustee might shrink to two from three, as North Carolina Treasurer Janet Cowell launches a wholesale review of the pros and cons of the approach.

On Jan. 16, Ms. Cowell named an independent group of 11 pension system representatives, legislators and industry experts to develop recommendations for the General Assembly to act on this spring. The new Investment Fiduciary Governance Commission’s assignment is a broad mandate to assess North Carolina’s current governance structure for all of the pension funds that make up the $83.1 billion North Carolina Retirement Systems, Raleigh. Commission members will evaluate best practices in public, private and non-profit investment sectors before advising Ms. Cowell on possible changes to suggest to the General Assembly.

If North Carolina moves away from a sole trustee arrangement, it would leave New York and Connecticut operating that way, rather than through boards of trustees. (In Michigan, the treasurer is the sole fiduciary.)…

Read the rest of the article at Pensions & Investments (free subscription site)

NYT: Foundations Aim to Save Pensions in Detroit Crisis

By RANDY KENNEDY, MONICA DAVEY and STEVEN YACCINO

National and local philanthropic foundations have committed $330 million toward a deal to avoid cuts to Detroit retirees’ pensions and to save the Detroit Institute of Arts’ renowned collection, federal mediators involved in the city’s bankruptcy proceedings announced on Monday.

The plan was a first both in the foundation world, which has not been a source of money to shore up public-sector pensions in the past, and in municipal bankruptcy cases, experts said. It also offered the first indication of progress in the intense mediation with Detroit’s creditors to resolve the city’s financial crisis. Those talks have been proceeding under strict secrecy guidelines.

Nine foundations, many with ties to Michigan — including the Ford Foundation, the Kresge Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation — have pledged to pool the $330 million, which would essentially relieve the city-owned Detroit Institute of Arts museum of its responsibility to sell some of its collection to help Detroit pay its $18 billion in debts. In particular, the foundation money would help reduce a portion of the city’s obligations to retirees, whose pensions are at risk of being reduced in the bankruptcy proceedings. By some estimates, the city’s pensions are underfunded by $3.5 billion.

As part of the plan, which negotiators have been working on quietly for more than two months, the museum would be transferred from city ownership to the control of a nonprofit, which would protect it from future municipal financial threats…

Read the rest of the article at the New York Times.