[quote=Wall Street Journal] San Diego County Pension Chief to Resign
By Dan Fitzpatrick
March 19, 2015 6:22 p.m. ET
The chief executive of San Diego County’s pension system announced he would resign at the end of the month, bringing fresh turmoil for the $10.4 billion fund.
San Diego County Employees Retirement Association said in a statement that CEO Brian White and the board had “amicably agreed” that Mr. White’s tenure of nearly two decades would end March 30. David Wescoe, former head of the city of San Diego’s pension fund, will take over as CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement.
A Sdcera spokesman said Mr. White made the decision to resign and that he and the board had been discussing the move “over the course of several months.” Mr. White said in a statement that “Sdcera has enjoyed great success, which I expect will continue” and that “serving as Sdcera’s CEO has been an incredibly rewarding professional experience.”
The exit of the system’s longtime leader caps a period of strife for a fund that manages money on behalf of more than 39,657 active and former public employees.
Board members and staff members spent much of the past year wrangling over an outside firm’s investment strategy that involved the use of derivatives to boost performance. The controversial approach was the subject of a front-page article in The Wall Street Journal.
The board voted in November to find a new internal investment chief rather than rely on an outside manager for that role.
FWIW everything I’ve looked at tells me that mis-use of math models are the cause for the financial crisis
paradoxically “the math” also tells me it is only a matter of time before the $hit hits the fan because no matter who the board finds to manage the fund, the “economic” system as it exists today is unsustainable…
