New Jersey State Investment Council

New Jersey State Investment Council Chairman Orin Kramer

Hedge fund manager Orin Kramer, who heads the New Jersey Investment Council, wants to set the record straight: the state pension fund’s losses would have been worse if he hadn’t begun diversifying its portfolio six years ago.

Kramer disputed a report that appeared on PolitickerNJ.com last week that contended he presided over the loss of $25 billion from New Jersey’s pension fund.  Upon taking the post in 2002, Kramer said that he recognized the need to for the state’s multi-billion dollar fund to diversify its holdings.  New Jersey, he said, stood alone in the proportion of stocks to other assets that its pension fund held.

“The reason that I joined the council is because New Jersey had the most undiversified, equity-heavy portfolio of any major comparable institutional fund in the country,” said Kramer.  “Compared to every major endowment, corporate pension fund and public pension fund, New Jersey was uniquely undiversified and heavily dependent on equities.”

Hedge Fund millionaire Orin Kramer and Obama national finance director Julianna Smoot. A state pension fund headed by Kramer says they have lost $25 billion since July

A New Jersey pension fund run by one of Barack Obama’s earliest and biggest campaign fundraisers/bundlers has lost $25 billion -- including $9 billion in October, according to a report issued today by a state panel.  The New Jersey Investment Council, chaired by hedge fund manager Orin Kramer, says that the value of the state pension fund has shrunk from $82 billion in July to $57 billion.

Kramer, 63, a former White House aide in the Carter administration and a partner at Boston Provident, was named to head the state retirement benefits panel by then-Gov. James E. McGreevey in 2003.  The state Division of Investment is one of the ten largest public fund managers in the U.S., with a market value at of $70.7 billion as of the end of September, according to the Treasury Department website.  The fund provides retirement benefits for more than 700,000 current and future retirees.

U.S. News and World Report ranked Kramer as Obama's #3 bundler last August, just behind Lehman Brothers' Christine Forester.

CLICK HERE TO READ KRAMER'S SIDE