DAMI Files FOIA Requests to Leading Pension Funds in D.C., New Mexico, Nevada, and New York City to Demand Data on Women/People of Color Asset Managers
Washington, D.C. - The Diverse Asset Managers Initiative (DAMI) has resorted to legal FOIA requests from the largest pension funds in Washington D.C., New Mexico, Nevada, and New York City on how they utilize Black and other minority or women asset managers to manage their assets.
“What are they hiding,” said DAMI Executive Director Robert Raben. “We’ve politely asked Nevada, New Mexico and DC to say how and whether they work with women and people of color for years, and we get nowhere. We’re resorting to FOIA to start the legal process of seeing if we can get a straight answer,“ said Raben.
Those of us pushing for diversity in asset management have made real progress among universities, foundations, and some municipal pension plans to get capital allocators to see the critical mass of high-performing managers of color and white women – and that their underutilization is costing institutional investors money. Yet, there is still more to do. While the pension funds of cities like New York have already provided much data and tracking, others have been slower to respond.
In fact, despite repeated efforts over the years, our requests for this information from D.C., Nevada, and New Mexico have largely been met with silence.
DAMI is turning its attention to some of the pension funds we want to learn more about. The following pension funds received a request for data on the demographics of the asset managers with whom they work:
Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) of New Mexico
District of Columbia Retirement Board (DCRB)
Nevada Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS)
New York City Employees’ Retirement System (NYCERS), Teachers’ Retirement System of the City of New York (TRS), New York City Police Pension Fund (POLICE), New York City Fire Pension Fund (FIRE), and New York City Board of Education Retirement System (BERS)
Not having this data prevents us from measuring any scalable progress.
We hope that we can count on these leading pension funds to provide this data and help key stakeholders better measure any scalable progress. By regularly tracking and reporting data on who manages their assets, these pension funds can begin to take meaningful steps to ensure they are working with the highest-performing asset managers, including women and people of color.