Oregon Selects New CIO to Replace Skjervem

Rex Kim, courtesy of Oregon State Treasury

The Oregon State Treasury announced that Rex Kim will spearhead the investment governance of the Oregon Public Employees’ Retirement Fund (PERF), the Oregon Short Term Fund, and the Common School Fund.

Kim will replace John Skjervem, who announced his departure last month to join the California-based investment consulting firm Alan Biller and Associates, where he will replace founder Alan Biller as CEO beginning in April. Skjervem had served as the state treasury’s CIO since 2012.

“I’m excited to be able to serve Oregon and the Oregon State Treasury in this new capacity,” said Kim, who has served on the Oregon Investment Council (OIC) since 2016. “The talented and dedicated professionals in Treasury’s investment division are the best in the field, and it’ll be an honor to work directly with them on behalf of Oregonians.”

The OIC is a heavyweight private assets allocator and regularly distributes commitments stretching more than $100 million to the world’s leading alternatives managers. Only three public pension plans in the United States surpass the scale of OIC’s private equity portfolio: the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), and the Washington State Investment Board.

Never miss a story — sign up for CIO newsletters to stay up-to-date on the latest institutional investment industry news. 

Deputy Treasurer Michael Kaplan said, “John oversaw meaningful, long-lasting changes to our investment division, and we want to build on that important work. Not long after we let OIC members know about John leaving, Rex expressed interest in the position, which seemed too good to be true. After interviewing Rex, we knew we’d found the right person to lead the team and help further strengthen our investment program.”

The fund last year decided to reallocate some capital away from public equities, and into risk-parity and alternatives-focused diversifying strategies.

Kim brings with him experience from several different investment-related agencies over a period of 25 years, with a focus on asset management and investment consulting. His resume includes serving as a senior consultant at Multnomah Group, a managing director at Tallwoods Partners, a portfolio manager at Common Sense Investment Management, and the director of hedge fund research at CTC Consulting. He’s also served as an adjunct instructor, teaching courses in finance.

Oregon Pension Stung by Investments in Socially Irresponsible Companies Via Index

Oregon PERF to Shift Public Equity Allocations

Tags: chief investment officers, CIO, John Skjervem, OIC, Oregon Investment Council, Oregon State Treasury, Rex Kim

SFERS encourages business to be creative in supporting the COVID-19 relief effort and to ‘utilize the current crisis to lead the human experience to new heights.’

The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS) issued a call to action for businesses to find creative ways to support the United States’ COVID-19 relief effort, suggesting companies may temporarily reorient their facilities to lend a hand to the crisis.

The pension tasked S&P 500 companies to report their own contributions to society’s efforts to stem the pandemic, and suggested several ways that a variety of different sectors can help, such as re-purposing hotels to accommodate patients and health care workers, and using existing supply chains to support the development of medical equipment such as ventilators and face masks.

“Everyone can do something, to help,” SFERS’s Chief Investment Officer Bill Coaker told CIO. “Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Ford, Microsoft, Roche, and many others have already undertaken wonderful ways to help. A small group of young musicians made a musical video on YouTube. Everyone can find their own way to help with their own time, talent, or treasure.”

The pension’s announcement came soon after Microsoft, Tesla, Apple, and Amazon announced their own respective efforts to help stem the pandemic. Apple stated it is actively sourcing scarce supplies necessitated by the medical emergency and pledged to supply 9 million masks. Tesla is engaging with ventilator manufacturers to learn how to produce them in its facilities, Amazon is reorganizing its logistics operations to support the cause, and Microsoft said it is engaging more heavily in telehealth and pandemic-related data projects in collaboration with other partners.

For more stories like this, sign up for the CIO Alert newsletter. 

SFERS also tasked a similar objective to its peer institutional investors, including pensions, endowments, and family offices, to publicly voice their support for SFERS’s call to action and join the cause.

“As institutional investors we are invested in many, if not all, of the same companies,” SFERS said in a statement. “We ask that you publicly make the same request of companies listed in the S&P 500 index.”

“The goal is to defeat COVID-19 and save lives,” Coaker told CIO.

As a public pension fund, Coaker said his team’s mainstream avenues of assisting the pandemic relief efforts are shepherded by its fiduciary obligations and adhering to them as best it can in a market downturn.

“The most important thing we can do is preserve our pension plan for existing and future generations. We have held up well,” Coaker told CIO. “We were overweight technology, software, the digital economy, biotech, and other innovation-oriented new economy segments that have held up relatively better. And we were underweight public equity, hotels, and other assets that have been especially hard hit.”

“Another way we can help is by utilizing our platform as a city that is a gateway to the world and a leader in innovation to encourage others to think creatively as to how they can use their own time, talents, and treasure to help others,” Coaker said.

“A third way we can help is by leading by example, by practicing generosity, compassion, and hope. The current situation is very scary. This is the most worrisome health pandemic in a century. But hardship can yield perspectives and talents that under more comfortable circumstances would lay dormant. We can utilize the current crisis to lead the human experience to new heights,” Coaker said.

The relief is also gaining participation from individual investors such as Ray Dalio, who donated $500,000 to the Connecticut Food Bank in light of pandemic. Dalio’s flagship Bridgewater Fund reportedly lost 20% from pandemic-related drops, and Dalio himself predicted US corporations will lose $4 trillion because of the virus.

Companies at this time should “keep themselves, their own employees, and their loved ones safe and well,” Coaker said. “Then utilize their own creativity, reach, and network to help health care professionals and people impacted by the virus and job loss.”