$8.6 Billion in Losses

Former Ohio public school teacher Dean Dennis hadn’t paid too much attention to what was going on underneath the hood of STRS Ohio, which had paid his modest pension since he retired in 2008, after teaching for thirty-five years. That changed in 2013, when the fund began to cut the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) he had been promised as part of his pension when he retired.

“First they eliminated our COLA for one year, and then reduced it from 3 percent to 2 percent for another three years, and then by 2017, they took the COLA away and it’s never been restored,” said Dennis.

Outraged, Dennis started two Facebook pages — one public, one private — that now have a combined twenty-four thousand members, all united to hold the STRS Ohio accountable. Along with two other retirees, Dennis launched petitions to restore their lost COLA, and they now have over fifty thousand signatures. And with the help of the nineteen-thousand-member Ohio Retired Teachers Association, Dennis raised $75,000 to hire Siedle to perform a fiduciary review of the pension fund.

While Siedle told us that he has yet to receive what he considers to be essential information about the operation of STRS Ohio, he says his review so far has revealed structural problems within the pension fund.

In his report released on June 7, Siedle found that, relative to a benchmark recommended in the last comprehensive performance audit of the fund, the STRS Ohio’s $27 billion in investments in private equity, real estate, and hedge funds had cost the pension $8.6 billion, or $2.5 million per trading day for fourteen years. On the other hand, according to the report, “Restoring the COLA benefit would cost less than $1 million ($890,000) per day.”

The alternative investment industry has generated some of the wealthiest individuals on the planet. Close Donald Trump confidante Stephen Schwarzman, who heads the private equity megafirm the Blackstone Group, has a net worth of $41.3 billion, while Jim Simons, who heads the major hedge fund firm Renaissance Technologies, has a net worth of $25.4 billion.

The alternative investment industry’s “2 and 20” fee mode (2 percent of assets and 20 percent of performance, typically over a threshold rate) can be 10,000 percent higher than the fees paid to low-cost index fund managers, who can charge fees as low as 0.035 percent of invested assets. At the same time, alternative investment funds typically deliver performance that fails to beat the market.

Rudy Fichtenbaum, a board member at STRS who has a PhD in Economics, agreed with Siedle’s concerns about the state pension fund. “The pension is going into private equity and other alternatives where they are paying huge fees and taking gigantic risk,” said Fichtenbaum. He was also troubled by the illiquidity of private equity and alternatives, which make it difficult for pension funds to get their investments back quickly. The process can sometimes take years, if it happens at all.

Fichtenbaum added, “Largely, the agenda and the narrative [of pension fund board meetings] is really controlled, in my observation, fairly tightly by the [STRS] staff.” According to Fichtenbaum, this arrangement has led the pension staff to “delay any consideration” of reinstituting cost-of-living adjustments, while at the same time receiving $10 million in total bonuses.

It’s clear, concluded Fichtenbaum, that the STRS staff is “very out of touch with retired members.”

“It’s Mind-Boggling”

The alternative investment industry has always operated under a tight veil of secrecy. Unlike publicly traded companies that have reams of publicly available information filed with the SEC, alternative investments only file a limited set of information. This means that unlike stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, there is no publicly verified information about how well these investments perform.

Critical investment questions, like how much risk and debt a specific fund is taking on, are often hidden away in closely guarded contracts, offering documents, and prospectuses. Alternative investment managers’ business contracts are typically not available through public records requests, due to alternative investment managers’ assertions of trade secrets privilege and public records exemptions created by state governments.

But such investment information is essential because some alternative investment funds have a habit of going broke. The Dayton Daily News earlier this year investigated the cautionary tale of Panda Power Funds, quoting an STRS spokesperson saying, “From 2011 to 2013, State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio invested $525 million with Panda, but the investment is now valued at zero.”

Siedle is working to obtain additional documents from STRS Ohio to shed light on its alternative investments — but so far, the process has proven difficult.

“We’ve asked for documents using industry standard terms, and they’re fighting with us about what these terms mean!” said former Ohio attorney general Marc Dann, who is assisting Siedle in his record requests. “It’s mind-boggling for all of us.”

Dann, however, expects Siedle to ultimately prevail in seeking the documents.

Dann drew a connection between STRS Ohio’s conduct and the infamous Coingate scandal, in which it was discovered that Ohio Republican leaders were rewarding campaign contributors through investments made by the Ohio workers compensation fund, including into the highly speculative market of rare coins.

“In the case of Coingate, the investments they chose to make were based on political decisions and rewarding campaign contributors,” said Dann. “We think there’s a really good chance that that is what is happening here.”

Thanks to the efforts of Siedle and Dann, plus the pressure campaigns of energized Ohio retirees, state leaders are finally starting to act. The office of the Ohio state auditor confirmed to us that an investigation into STRS Ohio is active and ongoing, although a spokesperson declined to provide further comment on the matter.

Soon these endeavors could pay off. As Siedle put it, “Ohio could be the first place where this secrecy is lifted.”

Robin Rayfield, executive director of the Ohio Retired Teachers Association, agrees it’s high time to address the issues facing STRS Ohio’s investments.

“Everyone gets rich who has any association with STRS,” said Rayfield, “except the people who put money in.”