San Diego Pension Rebuilds Post-OCIO | Chief Investment Officer

The San Diego County Employees Retirement Association (SDCERA) has hired an assistant CIO from the city’s pension fund, furthering the buildout of an internal team.

Thomas Williams joins a senior staff that’s entirely new from a year prior, when SDCERA terminated its outsourced-CIO Salient Partners.

Williams has a 12-year track record in public funds. He led fixed income for Arizona’s state system (2004 to 2007), and has served since then as a portfolio manager for the San Diego City Treasurer’s $2 billion pooled fund.

SDCERA conducted “a comprehensive, nationwide search” to fill the assistant CIO position, according to its Wednesday announcement.

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Over the last 12 months, the $10 billion fund hired in-house CIO Stephen Sexauer, its former consultant David Wescoe as CEO, and replaced its chief legal officer and CFO.

This team marks SDCERA’s return to a traditional public fund investment and governance structure, following a fraught six-year foray into outsourcing and risk parity.

“It’s been difficult for the organization over the last six months,” then-Trustee David Moore said in January 2015, during a contentious board debate on strategy. “No event has occurred over this period of time with the [risk parity] program that has forced us to change our mind. And yet, for whatever reason, we’re changing directions because we got spooked.”

Board Chair Skip Murphy, in contrast, later characterized this direction change as a “philosophical shift to return to an in-house investment management program.”

Assistant CIO Williams begins work on May 27.

A Bank of America managing director has accused her employer of misleading PIMCO and Blackstone, among other clients, in a gender discrimination lawsuit filed Monday.

Megan Messina—co-head of structured credit products—said the bank placed her on “unwarranted and unilaterally imposed forced ‘leave’” following whistleblowing complaints about unethical and illegal behavior by her peers.

In particular, she said that Kavi Gupta, Bank of America’s head of rates trading, “doctored” PIMCO trade documents after erroneously marking up prices.

“PIMCO asked Gupta to confirm in writing what he had told them about prices, and then, in an effort to cover up his material lies and misrepresentations, he doctored the trade blotter document by altering numbers on the blotter to cover up his lies,” the complaint stated.

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A spokesperson for Bank of America said the bank disputed the allegations regarding the PIMCO transaction.

Furthermore, Messina accused her co-head David Trepanier of multiple instances of misconduct, including withholding information from clients such as Blackstone and Anchorage while running a collateralized debt obligation (CDO) auction for hedge fund Hildene.

Anchorage said it was “deceived and misinformed by Trepanier, who knowingly provided them with false data,” according to the suit. Blackstone also allegedly complained about Trepanier’s “flawed and cavalier process.”

Though Messina said she acted as a whistleblower and raised concerns about her colleagues’ actions, these complaints “fell on deaf ears.” Additionally, she claims the bank retaliated by “improperly” suspending her.

Messina has sued for $6 million in owed wages.

A spokesperson for Blackstone declined to comment. PIMCO did not respond by time of press.