Watch the Regents Investments Committee: 3-15-2022

The March Regents meeting began yesterday with the Investments Committee. Public comments dealt with vaccination requirements, nurse labor relations, nurse staffing, student regents, low emissions, and Cal Grants. After the comments, there was the usual discussion of the portfolio, although without the many charts, etc., that usually accompany such discussions. It was said that with the current volatility in the stock market, the overall $160 billion portfolio was currently about where it was in value a year ago. The market funding ratio for the pension, until recently in the 90%+ range, was said to now be in the 80s.

Chief Investments Officer Jagdeep Bachhar indicated that he now believes that inflation is going to be persistent, not transitory. He also mentioned in an off-hand remark that UC now had no Russian assets. It was unclear if it had sold off what ever Russian assets it had, or if it didn't have such assets to begin with. There was much discussion of global political risks.

A second item dealt with rules regarding regents and advisors to the committee giving advice to the investments office. This item appeared to be related to some recent incident that led to an investigation, but no specifics were given. The general rule since 2018 seems to be that Regents are not supposed to recommend specific investments in which they have a financial interest - with financial interest defined in extensive terms. And Regents are not supposed to direct anyone to do anything. There was some pushback about these rules. Some Regents indicate that they are approached by folks who want to do business with the Regents and they simply pass the information along without any recommendations. Do they have to fill out a conflict-of-interest form in such cases? The general counsel seemed to want them to do so. At one point, UC president Drake indicated that doing so would avoid appearance of conflict and the need for expensive investigations.

As always, we have preserved the recording since the Regents delete their recordings after one year. You can see the session at:

https://archive.org/details/regents-investments-3-15-22.

The segment dealing with inflation and the absence of Russian investments can be seen at:

Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_q84Xk_UEw.