The nation’s largest pension fund got a scathing performance review Monday when its new investment chief highlighted the retirement system’s underperforming returns and estimated it missed out on $11 billion in gains during a “lost decade” for private equity.
The unusually candid presentation to board members of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as Calpers, showed returns lagging behind other large pensions in almost every asset class over the past 10 years, with private equity trailing the most, 1.3 percentage points.