NYCERS) Pension Fund
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Develop New and Innovative Investment Strategies in Infrastructure for New York City Employees' Retirement System (NYCERS) Pension Fund May 2015 Client: Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 Capstone Team: Cheska Tolentino Royce Otto Sun Jorge Cariola Xiaofang Liu Ruiqi Gao Faculty Advisor: Professor Joah Sapphire Capstone Report, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University Acknowledgements The Capstone team would like to thank the individuals who have guided and supported us throughout the spring 2015 semester and who have shared their valuable knowledge and expertise. We would like to firstly thank our SIPA faculty advisor, Professor Joah Sapphire, for his invaluable advice and guidance. We would also like to thank the staff at the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, the NYC Employees’ Retirement System, the Office of NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, the Townsend Group, and Bloomberg, for their continuous feedback and for challenging us to produce quality work. The following report was prepared by a Capstone team of graduate students from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University for the Transport Workers Union Local 100. This publication was produced to assist TWU Local 100 in their ongoing efforts in the critical area of infrastructure investments in the New York metropolitan area. While the team consulted with TWU Local 100 to produce this publication, this is not a TWU Local 100 product. 2 Table of Contents I. Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................... 4 II. Overview of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 ..................................................................... 4 III. Value of Infrastructure Investments ..................................................................................................... 6 IV. Overview of New York City Employees’ Retirement System ................................................................ 8 V. NYCERS Current Performance ............................................................................................................... 9 VI. Comparison to Other Public Pension Funds ....................................................................................... 11 VII. Impact of Alternative Investments ..................................................................................................... 12 VIII. NYCERS Current Infrastructure Exposure ........................................................................................... 14 A. NYCERS Current Infrastructure Investment Portfolio ..................................................................... 15 B. Performance Summary ................................................................................................................... 15 C. Portfolio Performance vs. Benchmarks .......................................................................................... 15 IX. New Infrastructure Investment Criteria.............................................................................................. 16 X. Available Options Under Current Infrastructure Investment Policy ................................................... 17 A. Listed and Unlisted Infrastructure Funds ........................................................................................ 17 B. Listed Infrastructure Companies ..................................................................................................... 18 XI. Analysis and Recommendations ......................................................................................................... 19 A. Listed Infrastructure Funds ............................................................................................................. 19 B. Unlisted Infrastructure Funds ......................................................................................................... 21 C. Listed Companies ............................................................................................................................ 29 XII. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 37 XIII. List of Figures ...................................................................................................................................... 38 XIV. List of Tables ....................................................................................................................................... 38 3 I. Executive Summary The Problem Currently, New York City Employees' Retirement System (NYCERS) pension fund has minimal exposure to infrastructure. As one of the Trustees of NYCERS, Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 requested our Capstone Team to recommend new infrastructure investments that are suitable for NYCERS. In addition, TWU challenged us to develop new criteria beyond traditional investment metrics such as risk- adjusted returns in order to better capture the benefit of infrastructure investments to TWU membership. Methodology We first reviewed NYCERS current infrastructure investment policy and infrastructure holdings. Then we summarized the universe of available infrastructure funds and companies investment options for NYCERS through research on Bloomberg and Preqin. We proposed new criteria, discussed those criteria with TWU and applied criteria to rank available infrastructure investments. We further created a new investment product with listed companies in the subway and bus manufacturing supply chain. Solutions The Capstone team found objective data to apply new criteria in evaluating an infrastructure investment’s exposure to the New York metro area, jobs created, and use of unionized workers as well as performance. While NYCERS has no exposure to listed infrastructure funds, the new criteria identified three suitable funds. In addition, the Capstone team’s new criteria identified ten unlisted infrastructure funds that perform well compared to industry benchmarks. NYCERS currently has no strategy to evaluate investments that support the supply chain of subway and bus manufacturers; therefore, we created a new listed infrastructure fund that outperforms the US equities market and has high likelihood to appreciate due to the MTA Capital Plan. II. Overview of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU), formed in 1934, serves over a hundred thousand member workers in fields related to transit, rail, and air. Its regional flagship chapter encompassing New York City is known as Local 100, and primarily represents workers of the city’s public transportation system as well as several private bus lines serving the metropolitan area. Headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, TWU Local 100 includes approximately 40,000 transportation workers employed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) New York City Transit, MTA Bus Company, Westchester Bee-Line, private paratransit as well as school bus companies, New York Waterway, and Citi Bike. Nearly 95% of the union, or approximately 38,000 members, is employed by the New York City Transit Authority. These workers maintain and operate 468 subway stations, 24 subway lines, 6,000 subway cars, and 4,500 buses. In addition to active workers, TWU also represents 26,000 retirees. 4 Since TWU Local 100 qualifies as one of the three unions in NYC with the largest number of participating employees, it acts as a Trustee on the Board of Trustees of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS), a $53.4 billion pension fund, which is part of the City’s primary pension funds. New York City has a total of five public pension systems that have combined assets of $160 billion and have the NYC Comptroller as custodian and financial advisor.1 Figure 1: NYCERS Board of Trustees Source: NYCERS Website, Board of Trustees, http://www.nycers.org/about/Board.aspx The Board of Trustees (the Board) is the governing body of NYCERS. Its responsibilities include investing the assets of the retirement system, establishing the administrative budget of the system and promulgating rules and regulations necessary to carry out provisions of law. In addition to other duties, members of the Board are obligated to participate in the monthly investment meetings of NYCERS. The NYCERS Board of Trustees, as prescribed by the law, consists of eleven members (see Figure 1): the Mayor's Representative, the City Comptroller, the Public Advocate, the heads of the three unions with the largest number of participating employees, and the five Borough Presidents. The Board is responsible for appointing the Executive Director, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the system.2 1 Office of the NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, “Overview of the NYC Public Pension Funds.” http://comptroller.nyc.gov/general-information/pension-funds-asset-allocation. Retrieved April 12, 2015. 2 New York City Employees’ Retirement System, “Board of Trustees.” http://www.nycers.org/about/Board.aspx. Retrieved April 14, 2015. 5 III. Value of Infrastructure Investments TWU Local 100 recognizes that there is a tremendous need for capital to fund the construction, rehabilitation and expansion of public transportation infrastructure in NYC. According to the New York State (NYS) Office of the State Comptroller (OSC), the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) will need to invest $106 billion over the next 20 years to maintain and modernize its assets.3 Of the