Pension Risk Matters : Pension Risk News & Analysis : Investment Governance, Inc. : Pension Risk & Investment

As I've written many times herein, understanding transferability restrictions is a "must do" for institutional investors who allocate monies to asset managers. While a pension, endowment, foundation or family office may decide to invest part of its portfolio in illiquid securities for strategic reasons, it is still necessary to understand how to exit if necessary. In "Hedge Fund Lock Ups and Pension Inflows" (July 4, 2011), the point is made that investors who want to redeem but are barred from doing so may seek redress in a court of law. Regulators are paying close attention too.

According to recent news accounts, several Louisiana pension funds that sought to withdraw some of their money from a New York hedge fund were given promissory notes with assurances that it could get cash in several years. Moreover, it may be that the hedge fund in question has counted assets under management more than once due to a feeder fund organizational structure that boasts over a dozen smaller vehicles which cross trade with one another.

In a joint statement dated July 11, 2011, the Firefighters' Retirement System ("FRS"), New Orleans Firefighters' Retirement System and the Municipal Employees' Retirement System ("MERS") describe how attempts by FRS and MERS "to capture some of the profits that had been earned in an investment known as the FIA Leveraged Fund" initially met with resistance on the part of the fund manager to provide cash right away. Instead, the two requesting institutions were told to expect paper IOUs while certain assets were to be liquidated in an orderly manner over a period of up to two years. The statement goes on to say that the pension plans had each been promised a return of at least 12 percent per annum and that if the "collateral supporting the preferred return declines to a level that is 20% above the systems' collective account values, there is a trigger mechanism requiring a mandatory redemption of the systems' investment" with the 20% cushion" designed to protect the systems' accounts against any loss in value."

Getting a promissory note has not made for happy campers who now worry about the liquidity of the FIA fund and "the accuracy of the financial statements issued by the two renowned independent auditors." The statement goes on to say that the hedge fund manager has been apprised that the pension plans intend to "closely examine" performance records by putting together a team that consists of their board members, internal auditors and investment consultant. A forensic economist may be added to the team.

Click to read the July 11, 2011 joint statement from these Louisiana pension plans about hedge fund liquidity concerns for this particular manager.

Having just checked the SEC website, this blogger does not yet see the formal inquiry statement. Speaking from experience, complexity is never a good thing. Someone somewhere has to understand what risks might give rise to material problems. Moreover, proper due diligence of funds that invest in "hard to value" instruments has to take into account how they are modeled and who is vetting the integrity of the model numbers. Regarding organizational structures that encompass multiple money pools, it is imperative to understand who exactly has a claim to assets in a worst case situation of forced liquidation.

A few years ago, I refused to continue with a valuation engagement of a hedge fund because neither the general partner nor the master fund's attorney could adequately answer my questions about priority of claims for a complex offshore-onshore ownership structure. In several recent matters where I have served as expert witness, concerns about restrictions of transferability and collateral monitoring have taken center stage. Be reminded that in distress, book values often fall seriously short of fire sale or even orderly liquidation (auction) values.

Let's hope that questions can be cleared up in a timely fashion.

Readers may want to check out these articles:

• "S.E.C. and Pension Systems to Examine Fletcher Fund" by Peter Lattman, New York Times, July 12, 2011; and
• "Pensions Want Look Into Fund's Records" by Josh Barbanel, Steve Eder and Jean Eaglesham, Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2011.

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It's been awhile since I've blogged. Work has been busy and then I took off ten days to visit Paris. The City of Lights is amazing indeed. Now that I'm back, I will try to blog more frequently. There is certainly no shortage of topics about risk, governance, litigation, valuation and so on.

For those who don't know, I created a sister blog a few months ago. See GoodRiskGovernancePays.com. Nearly all of the time, the posts on each blog are different. However, I decided to reprint a post from GoodRiskGovernancePays.com here since the topic is hugely important. After all, for those defined benefit and defined contribution plans that are exposed to "hard-to-value" investments, leverage and perhaps higher than expected volatility, model risk could be the hidden alligator that bites if left unchecked. As always, I welcome your comments at contact@fiduciaryleadership.com.

Here is the post that was originally posted on June 2, 2011 by Dr. Susan Mangiero.

In a recently published article about financial models entitled "Financial Model Mistakes Can Cost Millions of Dollars" (American Bar Association, Section of Litigation, Expert Witnesses, May 31, 2011), Dr. Susan Mangiero defines model risk and explains why it is so important. Referencing the recent $242 million enforcement action by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a result of model mistakes made by a well-known asset management firm, this financial expert cites the heightened regulatory and litigation imperatives with respect to risk and valuation models. She concludes the article by listing some of the ways to mitigate risk. These include, but are not limited to the following:

• Hire knowledgeable programmers with capital market experience;
• Create and follow a set of policies and procedures that govern how and who will validate financial models over time and what will trigger revisions in a model(s);
• Avoid conflicts of interest that would reward managers for ignoring problems and would potentially preclude an independent and objective assessment of problems and related corrective action(s);
• Test assumptions for validity in stable markets as well as extreme circumstances;
• Stress a model using a sufficient number of economic scenarios to gauge its predictive power and whether results can be relied upon in both good or bad times;
• Educate personnel about how a particular model is supposed to work;
• Establish a response strategy should a problem occur and investors need to be informed before things get out hand;
• Scrap models that are overly complex and expensive to replicate;
• Don't be afraid to ask questions about inputs, data quality, results, and concerns; and
• Invite informed outsiders to offer an independent and regular critique on a confidential basis.

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In case you missed it, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced significant enforcement initiatives on January 13, 2010. These include a focus on due diligence and valuation issues with a particular emphasis on due diligence, investment advisors, investment companies, performance and valuation.

Read "SEC Names New Specialized Unit Chiefs and Head of New Office of Market Intelligence" (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, January 13, 2010).

This follows on the heels of our January 7, 2009 blog post wherein we reported that the FBI is hiring over 2,000 professionals with backgrounds in accounting and finance. See "FBI Hiring Spree - More Financial Fraud Expected?" and "Wanted by the FBI: Talented Professionals to Serve the Nation."

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