We will catch up with the Regents as time permits. As blog readers will know, their meetings were shifted to a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday schedule this week. Usually, regular meetings of the Regents do not occur on Mondays.
The Monday meeting began at 3 pm in the UCLA Luskin Hotel and Conference Center with public comments. Topics included the announced closure of a childcare center at UCLA, a complaint that the ACT requires students to sign an unfair contract, accommodations for disabled students, UCLA Health's discontinuation of a contract providing coverage to Medi-Cal patients, calls to protect international students, and a thank you for Chancellor Frenk's expression of concern about a law school conference related to the 25th anniversay of 9-11.
After public comments, the meeting of the Investments Committee began. Chair Makarechian - who has mainly attended Regents meetings by Zoom after a major accident - appeared in person and introduced a student observer. CFO Bachhar reviewed investment returns during the 2025-26 fiscal year and beyond, which were strong. In particular, on a market basis, the pension became fully funded due to those returns. Data presented indicated that the portfolio was 63.3% in stocks, 14.5% in bonds, 1% in cash, and 21.2% in private assets (private equity, real estate, other real assets, and private credit). It might be noted that "private" means that the assets' value is more subjective than stocks, bonds, and cash which have regular objective market prices.
The Committee had Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone as a guest speaker via Zoom. Among other things, he echoed the general public discussion about AI being a Big Deal including - he noted - affecting the demand for electricity and thus utilities.
Because Blackstone was the parent of the BREIT that UC bailed out to the tune of $4.5 billion, there was a defense by Bachhar of that investment. I won't go through all the controversy about BREIT but he emphasized that UC was getting an 11.25% return as promised. The return itself was not the controversial element. What was controversial was that it was objectively a risky investment that Bachhar made entirely on his own initiative.
Moreover, his explanation now indicates that the 11.25% was somehow being maintained by drawing down "collateral." Exactly what that means is not clear. But let's assume that in the end, the investment pays off as promised. That outcome does not mean it was an advisable investment given the circumstances at the time. If the CFO took a big chunk of UC assets and bet on a horse, we would not say that decision was appropriate even if the horse came in. As our numerous blog posts at the time pointed out, there was very little discussion of the financial aspect of the bailout at the Investments Committee - although presumably it is the job of that Committee to ask questions about risk and return.
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As always, we preserve recordings of Regents meetings on the Internet Archive since the Regents have no policy on retention. Their YouTube recordings are unlisted, i.e., not searchable by the public. You can see the Sept. 14 recording at:
https://archive.org/details/regents-investments-committee-9-14-2026.
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