Per Thompson Reuters News: NEW YORK, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann and Labaton Sucharow will be the lead law firms in securities lawsuits arising out of Facebook Inc’s $16 billion initial public offering, according to a federal judge’s ruling on Thursday. The two firms represent a group of state pension funds [...]
State Treasurer Cowell: “Obviously, that means more burden on taxpayers”
A couple of months ago, I blogged here about how North Carolina’s pension fund is likely in much worse shape than even the current $2.8 billion unfunded liability represents. The reason is because North Carolina, like many state and local government pension funds, uses unrealistically optimistic investment return projections in their actuarial valuation. This year’s [...]
State Treasurer Cowell: Why So Much Support From Out of State Law Firms?
The Fayetteville Observer today publishes an article of mine focusing in on the high amount of out-of-state donors of State Treasurer Janet Cowell, and a practice that certainly gives the appearance of pay-to-play arrangements. Janet Cowell’s primary responsibility as State Treasurer is to oversee the pension fund for retired North Carolina teachers and state employees. [...]
Powerful State Employee Group Refuses to Endorse Cowell
On the heels of NC State Treasurer Janet Cowell receiving criticism regarding possible conflicts of interest involved in the state pension fund’s investment in Facebook’s IPO (and subsequent lawsuit), today we receive news that the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC) is refusing to make an endorsement in the race for state treasurer. The fact that SEANC isn’t endorsing Cowell [...]
State Pension Fund Returns Nearly $4 Billion Below Projections
An already bad week for State Treasurer Janet Cowell just got a little worse. On the heels of the Facebook fiasco, which raised several questions of dubious ethics, we now hear reports about the state pension fund’s lackluster performance for the 2011 fiscal year ended June 30. North Carolina’s pension fund returned 2.21 percent for the fiscal [...]
