Lehman Brothers

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

Other pension funds are suing Lehman Brothers to recover lost investment income. Where is New Jersey's lawsuit?

Does State's Exit from Failed Lehman Brothers Investment Hold the Key to Determining Why the Pension Council Became Involved in the First Place?

State Senator Joe Pennachio (R-Morris, Passaic) questioned today if the same person or persons who determined that New Jersey should rid itself of Lehman Brothers Stock were the same individuals who had the pension fund invest $178 million in Lehman in the first place. New Jersey subsequently lost $115 million of the $178 million investment in three short months. This occurred at a time when Lehman was being rejected worldwide for capital. New Jersey could have been the last major institution to abandon Lehman, prior to it's bankruptcy.

State Senator Joe Pennacchio asks how two top Lehman executives and one former Lehman executive on New Jersey's investment council could have let the state lose more than $115 million in three months investing in the now-bankrupt Wall Street investment bank.

The possibility of litigation shouldn't block rapid and full disclosure of what led up to the state's disastrous investment in Lehman Brothers.