California Public Employees' Retirement System Chief Investment Officer Joseph Dear succumbed to prostate cancer yesterday in Sacramento, Bloomberg reported citing a statement from the fund. He was 62 years old.
He was credited for rebuilding the largest public pension fund in the US after it suffered a $96 billion loss. In March 2009, Dear took over the investments of Calpers when the worldwide financial crisis brought down its assets to $164.7 billion. Its pre-crisis asset level in October 2007 was $260.6 billion. The fund's assets went back to the level they were before the recession in May under Dear's guidance, the report said.
Dear's battle with cancer was disclosed in June last year together with the announcement that he would be letting Theodore Eliopoulos, his next-in-command, manage the fund's daily investment operations. Those who survived him included his wife Anne Sheehan who works at the California State Teachers' Retirement System as the Director of Corporate Governance, the report said.
Dear primarily invested in private equity, emerging markets, hedge funds and public works projects to enable the fund to attain its annual rate of return which is now pegged at 7.5%. He campaigned for private equity firms to bring down their fees and put up controls to govern conflict-of-interest after the fund faced a scandal about influence peddling in 2008 and 2009, the report said.
Last year, Calpers achieved its highest gain in 11 years when it returned 16.2% under Dear. Bloomberg data showed that the fund also followed Standard & Poor's 500 index of shares which increased 29.6% last year when it posted 25.6% earnings on its publicly traded equity holdings, the report said.
Before joining Calpers, Dear served as the Executive Director of the Washington State Investment Board. Calpers said Dear was born in Washington, DC in 1951 and was a graduate of Evergreen State College in Olympia, the report said.
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