Calpers – keep an eye on it. It is one …

Calpers – keep an eye on it. It is one of the largest institutional investors in the United States. It manages the pension funds for the State of California. There are several stories of “deals” that were made to divert money into Private Equity funds that are now not doing so well. Also, when California has budget problems, they tend to look at the fund as a piggy bank they can borrow from or underfund. During the “good years”, many pension funds were lightly funded believing that the market and real estate would go up forever at 20% a year, hence no new funds were needed.