Last Days to Nominate Your Picks for the 2019 CIO Innovation Awards

Photo by Margarita Corporan

For 10 years, CIO has honored the accomplishments of you, the chief investment officers, with our Industry Innovation Awards.

On Thursday, December 12, at the New York Public Library, CIO will once again bring together institutional investors and those who provide for them.

It’s time to nominate deserving asset owners and asset managers/servicers for this year’s awards.

Since we started these awards in 2010, “innovation” has perhaps become an overused buzzword. While others may confuse innovation with change, we do not: Our goal is to highlight the truly innovative approaches to asset management and asset owning, separating the merely different from the meaningful.

When nominating, ask yourselves, who has done something that is truly different, that may have changed the way we think about this business?

To nominate, please follow the survey directions here.

What You’ll Need:

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To make a nomination, you’ll be asked whether you’re nominating an asset owner or asset manager, the name and title of the person or entity you’re nominating, their location, email address and to choose which category they fall into.
The asset owner CIO categories fall into plan size and type, as well as special categories for ESG and Collaboration. Asset manager categories fall into a full array of topics of expertise. You can make more than one nomination, and you’ll do this by indicating if you’re done or ready to nominate another. Please feel free to make as many nominations as you’d like.

THE DEADLINE TO SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATIONS IS AUGUST 3.

To verify nominees, CIO editorial team will consult an advisory board of former and current chief investment officers, consultants and allocators including Chris Ailman of CalSTRS; Raphael Arndt of Australia’s Future Fund; Paul Ballard of Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Co.; Harshal Chaudhari of IBM; Dan Chu of Sierra Club; Matt Clark of South Dakota Investment Council; Anne Dinneen of Hamilton College; Jonathan Grabel of LACERA; Rosalind Hewsenian of Helmsley Charitable Trust; David Holmgren of Hartford HealthCare; Robert Hunkeler of International Paper; Kim Lew of Carnegie Corp.; Allan Martin of NEPC; Sam Masoudi of Wyoming Retirement System; Jacque Millard of Intermountain Healthcare; Chad Myhre, Portfolio Manager of Hedge Funds and Domestic Equities, Public School and Education Employee Retirement System of Missouri (NextGeneration winner of 2018); Mansco Perry of Minnesota State Board of Investment; Susan Ridlen of Eli Lilly; Anthony Waskiewicz of Mercy Health, St. Louis.

Hartford HealthCare CIO David Holmgren will chair the board.

Click here to view CIO’s 2018 Industry Innovation Award winners.

Tags: CIO, CIO Innovation Awards, Endowments, Foundations, Innovation Awards, Pension

Connecticut’s State Employees Retirement System (SERS) has unfunded pension liabilities of $21.2 billion, and a funded level of only 38% as of June 30, 2018, according to recently released data from the state’s Office of Fiscal Analysis.

The information, which came from a SERS employee fact sheet released by the Office of Fiscal Analysis, shows that the retirement system’s liabilities have been growing at a far faster pace than its assets since at least 2011. SERS is the state’s defined benefit plan for approximately 50,000 active and retired state employees.

According to the fact sheet, between June 30, 2011, and June 30, 2018, the retirement system’s assets rose $2.9 billion to $13 billion from $10.1 billion. However, during that same time period, its unfunded liabilities ballooned to $21.2 billion from $11 billion, and the system’s funded ratio fell to 38% from 48%.

State contributions to the retirement system have also increased sharply over the past decade, more than doubling to $1.57 billion in 2019 from $753.7 million in 2009. The fact sheet also shows that the state’s contributions to the retirement system will rise to $1.62 billion in 2020, and $1.74 billion in 2021.

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According to conservative think tank Yankee Institute, Connecticut underfunded the state pension by 7% in 2009, and continued paying less than the required amount by as much as 20% through 2011. It said that although state law required the pension system to be fully funded by 1985, and for that funding to be maintained, deals between union leaders and past governors overrode that statute and allowed Connecticut to stiff the pension system.

The state tried to make amends for this shortfall by maintaining 100% funding from 2012 through 2014, and approximately 99% through 2017, but it was too late.

“The few years of fully funding the pension system was not enough to undo two decades of short-changing the pension system,” wrote Yankee Institute’s Marc Fitch.

A March report from The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) placed Connecticut 49^th out of 50 states in terms of unfunded liabilities per capita at $32,805—second only to Alaska, and compared with the overall average of $18,300 per capita among all 50 states. The state was also ranked 42 out of 50 in terms of unfunded liabilities as a percentage of the gross state product at 45.13%.

Tags: Connecticut's State Employees Retirement System, Funded Status, Pension, Yankee Institute