Trump Names PBGC Advisory Committee Members

President Donald Trump has appointed seven members to serve on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporations’ Advisory Committee. They are Henry Eickelberg, Jeanmarie Grisi, Babette Ceccotti, Guy Pinkman, Donald Butt, Regina Jefferson, and Jackson Millerda.

The committee advises the agency on investment policy and other matters related to PBGC’s mission. Many of the appointees are familiar faces, as Eickelberg, Butt, Ceccotti, and Jefferson were previously on the committee.

“These are excellent appointments who represent plan sponsors, participants, and the public,” said PBGC Director Gordon Hartogensis in a statement. “I am looking forward to working with them.”

Eickelberg, who will serve as chair and will represent the interests of employers, is an adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center, and was previously appointed to the committee by President Barack Obama. He is the faculty advisor for the ERISA certificate program in Georgetown’s advanced legal program, and teaches a comprehensive ERISA practicum class.

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Eickelberg is also employer co-chairman of trustees for both the IAM National 401(k) Fund and IAM National Pension Fund, for which he is responsible for providing oversight of strategic direction, administrative, and investment programs, and compliance with government regulations. And according to Georgetown Law, he holds a US Top Secret clearance. His appointment is set to expire Feb. 19, 2022.

Grisi is CIO, pension investments, at Nokia, and is responsible for the oversight of investments and accounting for the Nokia global pension and post-retirement benefit trusts, which total over $37 billion. She serves on the national board of the Girl Scouts of the USA, is a director of Vantage Trust Company, and is a current member and past treasurer and board member of the Committee on Investment in Employee Benefit Assets Inc. Grisi was also treasurer for the Carnegie Corporation of New York for 15 years. Like Eickelberg she will represent the interests of employers, and her appointment is also set to expire Feb. 19, 2022.

Ceccotti is a retired partner from Cohen, Weiss and Simon LLP in New York City, where she focused on employee benefits and bankruptcy. As part of the firm’s bankruptcy practice, Ceccotti represented labor organizations and employee benefit plans in numerous bankruptcy cases in a wide range of private sector industries. And as part of the firm’s employee benefits practice, she represented unions and employee benefit plans in pension, health, and other employee benefit matters. She will represent the interests of employee organizations, and her appointment is set to expire Feb. 19, 2020.

Pinkman served as acting chief and captain/paramedic for the Lincoln Fire Rescue Department, and has served as a trustee on the Lincoln Police and Fire Pension Fund for over 10 years. He is an expert on pensions including funding status, fiduciary responsibilities and numerous other pension issues, according to the PBGC. He will represent the interests of employee organizations, and his appointment will expire Feb. 19, 2020.

Butt serves on the board of the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association and is active with the Committee for the Investment of Employee Benefit Assets. He retired as the vice president for operations and defined contribution plans for Qwest Asset Management Co. He will represent the interests of the general public, and his appointment will expire Feb. 19, 2020.

Jefferson is a professor of law at the Catholic University of America, where she teaches courses in federal income taxation, ERISA, pension tax policy, and partnership taxation. She will represent the interests of the general public, and her appointment will expire Feb. 19, 2021.

Miller retired as vice president for General Motors Asset Management in New York and served on the investment committee of the Helmsley Charitable Trust. Prior positions include vice president relationship management at J.P. Morgan Investment Management, vice president of investments at Philip Morris, and director of investments at Eli Lilly. Miller will represent the interests of the general public, and his appointment will expire Feb. 19, 2022.

Tags: Donald Trump, PBGC, PBGC Advisory Committee, Pension

A short time ago, the South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission (RSIC) announced the formation of a new private equity co-investment program with GCM Grosvenor that’s designed to position it as a preferred provider of co-investment capital to general partners.

CEO Michael Hitchcock and Director of Risk James Wingo sat with CIO to discuss the merits and goals of the new program that’s expected to grow over time to constitute approximately 30-40% of its private equity portfolio.

CIO recently held an interview and podcast with Alaska Permanent Fund Corp’s Chief Investment Officer Marcus Frampton, during which he explained how his own co-investment program was able to generate a return of over 60%.

The RSIC selected GCM Grosvenor after a competitive process that launched in 2017, which assessed myriad factors and characteristics, including overall cost structure, quality of their team, track record, etc.

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GCM was also selected, in part, because of its relationships that can help RSIC expand into the middle market, Hitchcock and Wingo said.

“They have two sleeves to the mandate—one a discretionary sleeve where GCM has full discretion on investment decisions as well as sourcing the opportunities. They also support our underwriting process with opportunities that are sourced from us—in that way they can act in an advisory capacity where the decisions still rest with the RSIC,” Hitchcock said. “With a portfolio of co-investments, we have the opportunity to earn the gross of fee return as opposed to a net of fee return through a fund investment. It’s a way for us to capture that additional return when we’re taking the same amount of risk as being invested in a fund.”

“We see it as more of the ability to reduce the private equity program’s overall cost, rather than targeting a particular return,” Wingo said.

“The goal of the program is to be a ready source of capital—be able to react quickly when GPs come to us with opportunities. The ability to make a decision and to be able to deploy capital is something that’s very valuable for GPs when it comes to co-invests,” Hitchcock added.

“We have relationships with GPs across several asset classes, so I think we’ll eventually see these opportunities in other asset classes. With time, I think we could see the program move into other asset classes such as private credit,” said Hitchcock.

Lots of North American institutional investors are looking to reap the benefits of co-investments, such as the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), whose new CIO Ben Meng has been advocating for a more robust co-investment program. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) is pushing for more co-investments as well.

“The design of our co-investment process and partnership has been a long journey; we’ve come to realize the goal for us is to become a preferred capital provider to GPs and to build relationships with those GPs. It’s really all about that in the process. With that, we’ve designed the process to have a streamlined approach, whereas in the past maybe we’ve taken a bit longer to get to a firm investment decision,” added the CEO.

“The process has been streamlined and we now have a one-week target timeframe for initial indication of interest and then a four-week timeframe from receipt of materials to closing. Having that partnership and infrastructure with GCM allows us to reliably execute on that and our GPs are seeing that, so we think that clarity of process is important to GPs,” Hitchcock continued.

“The investment approvals are happening at the staff level, rather than board level, which we’re seeing is an important asset within the GP community,” WIngo said.

“We’re very intentional about our approach to co-invest; we see it as an opportunity to build relationships with our GPs, we try to have excellent communication as well with our GPs, we’re focused on being good partners,” he added.

“We’ve been able to design a program that allows us to gain confidence about a decision much more quickly, but without sacrificing the quality of our underwriting—so it hits the sweet spot for both us and the GPs,” Hitchcock said.

“We are delighted and honored that RSIC has chosen us as its strategic partner for this initiative,” added Jon Levin, president of GCM Grosvenor, in a prepared statement. “We look forward to working with RSIC to build a world-class co-investment program that helps it achieve its long-term objective of providing attractive returns to its pensioners.”

Related Stories:

Marcus Frampton: New Sheriff in Juneau

CalPERS Private Equity Co-Investment Plan Could Be Announced Next Month

CalSTRS Wants to Double Co-Investments

Tags: Michael Hitchcock, Private Equity, South Carolina, South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission

Trump Names PBGC Advisory Committee Members

Exclusive: South Carolina Hits the ‘Sweet Spot’ with New Co-Investment Program

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