UC borrows $2.7 billion to Fund Pension Debt
UC regents last week approved borrowing another $700 million internally to help close a pension funding gap, bringing the total borrowed to $2.7 billion in a pension bond-like strategy with risks or rewards, depending on investment earnings.
8 comments:
what interest rate will they be paying the savings plan investors?
For those who are interested, the details are here: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/jul14/f2.pdf
This seems to be UC borrowing from it's own short-term investment fund (which supports university operations). The purpose of the borrowing is for UC to make its actuarial-required contribution to UCRP without further increasing members' contribution rate. This is to continue to move the UCRP towards "full funding".
It appears that the borrowing will be repaid over 30 years by UC by very small changes in overheads collected from campuses and med centers. The interest rate must be pretty small, but I did not see that it was specified.
UCRP did not borrow this money, and does not have to repay it.
This is UC doing what it can to keep up with its commitments.
So they borrow from savings in a mutual fund that they control. What was previously invested I shorter term treasury like Instruments is now lent to the Regents of UC. The risk profile has changed from government backed to God knows what. What is the risk premium they will pay, since cannot be a a market rate. In most investments the bond holder councils and conventions contract expected behavior
on the borrower. Since the treasuret controls both funds, how is the interest of the Savings plan contributors protected? The is a conflict of interest here.
Apologize to readers. The interface between a limited text editor and a cavalier spell checker often massacres the intent of the posting.
LLNS and UCRS both need employee and retiree representation on the investment committees
While I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with July 29, 2014 at 3:06 PM, this particular event really has nothing to do with UCRS. It's a UC event.
July 29, 2014 at 3:00 PM: I don't think that the "Savings plan" (i.e. the UCRS savings plan fund) is involved in this. I think UC simply took money from a short-term UC money-market account (where UC keeps its pocket change)and paid the UCRS. I don't really understand why it is characterized as a "loan" at all. But that's probably why I'm not rich......
This is a point worth investigating further.
I believe the current UC Treasurer still keeps a short term investment pool called the Savings Plan for University purposes. The current assets of participating LLNL, LBL, University and LANL 403b, 457 and 401b account holders who are invested in the "Saving Plan" are commingled with other assets. UCRS funds are also commingled in this, which is a separate pot from Univesity assets, such as endowments.
But I am not sure of this.
If I recall correctly, historicaly, UC and the individual campuses could invest funds in various pools according to their objectives, the Equity Plan, Savings fund and Bond fund were three important pools managed by the UC Treasurer, at the time, Patricia Small. UCRS also invested some of its assets in these three pools, and branched out over time.
But I still think the University and UCRS and employee tax-deferred funds (that remain in these plans) are commingled.
UC Savings Plan is entirely different from UCRP Savings Fund. Employees and retirees of UC have no connection to the UC Savings Plan.
Post a Comment