A Very Interesting Tidbit About MOSERS Over at Bloomberg.com

State and Local Government | January 14, 2009

By David Stokes | Read Time 1 minute

Bloomberg.com, in a very interesting story about the problems facing public pension funds, reports the following (link via Drudge):

The Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System invested $25 million in half the equity portion of the BlackRock Senior Income Series 2006 collateralized loan obligation, managed by New York-based BlackRock Inc. Moody’s last month cut ratings on parts of the debt, saying a drop in value of the underlying collateral may cause “an event of default.”

Chris Rackers, the manager of investment policy and communication for the Missouri fund, didn’t return calls seeking comment.

This seems somewhat frightening. It also seems a good opportunity to plug our recent study of Missouri’s pension funds by the other Richard Dreyfuss.

About the Author

David Stokes

David Stokes is a St. Louis native and a graduate of Saint Louis University High School and Fairfield (Conn.) University. He spent six years as a political aide at the St. Louis County Council before joining the Show-Me Institute in 2007. Stokes was a policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute from 2007 to 2016. From 2016 through 2020 he was Executive Director of Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, where he led efforts to oppose harmful floodplain developments done with abusive tax subsidies. Stokes rejoined the Institute in early 2021 as the Director of Municipal Policy. He is a past president of the University City Library Board. He served on the St. Louis County 2010 Council Redistricting Commission and was the 2012 representative to the Electoral College from Missouri’s First Congressional District. He lives in University City with his wife and their three children.

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