tv Government Access Programming SFGTV January 27, 2018 3:00pm-4:01pm PST
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they announced that i've come together to engage the largest carbon emmitters, under even umbrella, new umbrella, called the climate action 100, which john mentioned. that is to say, that the directionality is clear and transition to a low-carbon economy is nuanced in the impact it's going to have. john spoke really well to the nuances. it will create winners. it will create losers. the question is, how do you manage that downside risk and capitalize on the upsides of the transition? this response, how do you manage that and mitigates the solutions. time check? >> i haven't been timing you.
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>> that's all right. bill mckibbon called for a managed transition off fossil fuels. if we're talking specifically about fossil fuel companies, which oil and gas companies are currently aligned with a two degree pathway and which are spending capital on projects that will be stranded down the line. to answer that question, there was a report that ranks the 69 largest oil and gas companies on the proportion of their capital expediture that falls either inside or outside of a two degree budget. what emerges is a picture of which companies are most exposed to asset risk and least exposed. with that information, investors can choose a number of pathways. you can hedge that risk in a number of ways. john mentioned some of them. you can allocate to a low-carbon
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index. it reweights towards better performers and underweights carbon emissions and momentum, transitioning to become more sustainable companies. and you can engage with the laggards and help them become more sustainable. and then you can, of course, just divest all together and take a phased approach to text itting -- to exiting the conversation. what i will say is that it's being done in a measured approach. some of the key aspects to
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engagement, which 5 want to spend a few moments on. a, to improve management and corporate governance at the board level. b, to improve disclosure and align that disclosure in a way that's decision-useful for investors. and, c, to actually reduce carbon emissions. and so there's a financial stability board. the financial stability board was created by central bank governors and bank of england and it was created to avoid another 2009 financial crisis. they identified climate change
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and been able to make capital allegation decisions. and the tcfd marks a significant evolution in terms of how institutional investors and, you know, the market and private market actors, just signalling how this is an issue that will affect us all. let's glean the data we need to make informed decisions.
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>> just for time sake -- >> you were on a personal journey from divestment to coming back to pris mission. can you explain briefly why you've changed your perspective. >> it's not really that i've changed my perspective. >> your approach. >> every institutional investor has a path they can take. john can probably speak to this better than i can. if you are a foundation with a clear mission of solving climate change, you have more leeway to make decisions, bound by if ied -- fiduciary duties and it may cause you to make certain decisions that others don't. in that context, it's a multipronged approach that will
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win the day. not to throw the baby out with the bath water and take an approach that ultimately, again, is thought out. it has teeth. if you are going to engage with companies, put a timeline on it and articulate the consequences if they don't shift in alignment with how you want them to shift. and use the other levers at your disposal. we need $1 trillion in investments annually to meet the paris agreement. a small chunk of that will come from governments. the rest from investors, finance institutions, and companies, and so investors have a key role to play to help us achieve a 2-degree target. you have a plan on the table today. that's one aspect.
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engagement. whether to engage with fossil fuel companies or not, that's up to the board to decide. but we can provide guidance and experience. i mentioned a report that ranks these companies. engage across other sectors, help the automotive industry transition to more efficient vehicles, electric vehicles, etc. >> so when i was engaging with calpers, you were imploring on me to please do not divest and walk away. calpers has said, be at the table. go to level 2, not level 3. go to level 2. >> yeah. >> and be at the table
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negotiating with us, so we have the clout. and if we do it together, we can move a lot of the bad players and hold -- put some teeth in to how we're doing it, because we haven't put any teeth in and they held themselves accountable. >> there's historical context. sfpers committed in 2015 and not much has been done. the environment is much different today. it was last month that it was launched. it has teeth. collectively, this group of investors owns roughly around 25% of the companies that are being engaged. so companies will listen to that group. i think the question -- part of the question and part of the answer to the question is, what kind of teeth are you putting
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behind it. $40 billion pension fund, dutch pension fund, said we will engage, but if we don't see change in three to five years, we'll divest. there is a middle ground that can be struck. i will not tell you what to do, but i'm trying to paint a picture that there are multiple avenues. you can take the new york city route. as john mentioned, they have not ta tangibly committed to anything today. >> i'm picking up, we commit in 2015 to do something, to go to level two, but that's not strong enough because we're not putting teeth in it. if you go to level two and want to be at the table, get a commitment from the companies that we have real standards we can judge their actions within two, three -- whatever the time period. >> yes. figure out exactly what you want
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those companies to become and give a time frame. if they don't transition in that time frame, make an informed decision. so that's one side of the conversation. >> so i'm trying to think about our progress, too, as a board. we went to that 2015. and some of the other pensions did what we did. we're going to be a the at table, going to level two. we're going to engage. are you saying now because we've committed to being much more trying to put teeth in it that other organizations are doing that with us. >> and to get back to boring operational stuff, but the fact that there is a head count.
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>> yes. it's a great idea, but who will do it. >> like we don't have 20 people like calpers does. >> but adding actual, dedicated people to the task. and as i understand it, number one, have someone whose day job is that, and, two, plug into the initiatives, so you can extend the reach. you nope what it is you want to do. >> let's progress on that. it's important to see that we have moved ahead. we haven't moved ahead fast enough and we want to put some teeth into this. so i think what we're really saying is, 215, we did that. we need more responses. we need to have more effect. so what we're doing now, putting on the table, is that we're actually hiring somebody now to do it full time.
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so we're putting money behind it. and we haven't done that before. calpers has 20 people behind it. i don't know if new york city has anybody behind it. >> i think it's a question of how you word it, right? it's a question of what you are committing to. new york city said, in five years, our desire is to not have these companies in our portfolio. >> that's a long time. to me, it doesn't seem like a lot of teeth. it's where people have gone, but it seems like they're studying it, looking at it. we have people in the audience saying, we need some teeth in this to see results. >> this is one of the nice things about the proposal. step one is moving $1 billion, right, this idea that, you know, all of this other stuff is good and important and go to have aspiration and process, but moving money is important. >> to be clear, getting rid of
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all fossil fuels, selling them all tomorrow, is just fiducia fiduciarily, legally imprudent. it exposes you to a lot of risk. everyone who will make this decision and has made this decision, hasn't just done it the night after. they've done it in a phased, prudent approach. you have responsibilities. >> when you say "phased, prudent approach," don't you still need a timeline? you don't think it's prudent to do it tomorrow, but don't you think you have to put a timeline on it at some point? >> i do. 100%, yes. [applause] if the decision you are making is to divest -- and i'm not telling you to do that -- but if that's your decision, of course,
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give it teeth. if you are going to engage, give that teeth, too. in the meantime, don't -- don't get rid of the proposals on the table to invest in solutions to invest to a low-carbon index. if this passes, it will be, as far as i understand, the largest allocation to low-carbon index. >> so number one, recommending to put this amount of money to a carbon index. we're doing something finally. so i think most of us like that. and i think, two, the fossil fuel -- you're saying, recommending from your standpoint, it's not prudent to do it tomorrow, but it is important for you to now identify those companies, analyze them, figure out which
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ones are not a good investment and dirty and will be bad for the portfolio anyway. >> i will steer away from making that kind of a recommendation, but what i will say is that, whatever decision you to make, yes, needs to be really well thought out, so if you do divest over a period of time, if that's what you choose to do, you are doing it in a prudent way. i do believe the riskiest fossil fuels are easily identifiable you've gotten rid of some of them already. and there are others that can be done in a more immediate fashion. >> and in how many -- we've sold in the thermal area, what, nine companies? >> right. >> restricted. okay.
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that's what we're looking to build on right now. >> how many people have come to you and said, we've divested and we made a mistake? or we wanted to slow it down, if we had a chance to resell? walk me through -- >> none of our signatories -- >> whatever divestment they've done. >> it's important to differentiate. if you divest from all fossil fuels and you do that tomorrow, that's different than selling off two coal companies or whatever it is. so i think what i'll say is that every signatory that's taken some kind of divestment action, has done it in a thought out, procedural way and not a reactive,
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get-rid-of-this-tomorrow way. i can safely say that, right? >> thank you. that's helpful. >> are we on time? >> behind. shall we go to alan or do you have more questions? >> i think there will be quite a few questions from the board. but i also don't want to make the public wait until 4:00 to be able to speak. so why don't we continue to move forward and give our investment consultant a chance to speak. >> sure. alan. >> let me jump right into it. the issue is not whether global warming exists. credible evidence indicates it exists. it's associated with greenhouse gases and burning of fossil fuels as a contributor to that. the question, as been said before, how do we manage the risk of global warming on our investment portfolios.
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i don't know if you can put up page 4, bill. we did not -- i know john and i know stephanie. we didn't collaborate on this, but there are a number of ways to deal with global warming that have a positive effect on the result you are trying to achieve and don't have a negative effect on the risk-return parameters of the portfolio, which is the duty of you, the board, to protect. proxy voting, active engagement alongside others. investment technologies in industries expected to benefit from change in energy mix, and the last one, which was mentioned, ability to take an invest fund, which is not a value buyer, and use the tracking error in that index fund, who in a measured way, create the effect you are trying to do, and that's to reduce the carbon footprint of the
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companies you invest in. i'm sad to say that we don't find that broad divestment from industries across the board is an effective way to do that. you have approximately -- i'm not laughing at you. i would appreciate it if you don't laugh at me. >> as a reminder to everyone in the room, be respectful to the speakers. when you talk, we will not laugh at you or make noises. everyone be respectful. if you find anyone being disrespectful, remind them. >> you have $523 million of cu in your portfolio. it's a lot of your portfolio. not only will divestment have no measurement impact on the production of fossil fuels, we're simply transferring our ownership of those holdings to someone else. someone who knows that you are going to sell those. someone who will extract the
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price at which you sell the securities, causing to you pay transaction fees to get rid of those securities. and that -- while it's small -- is a permanent loss of principle in your portfolio. if you were to do that in a confined period, the cost of the portfolio would be about $1.2 million. in disposing of the shares, we forefit our seat at the table to influence fossil fuel producers. by selling that, we give up the right, but the people that were going to buy the shares, don't care about this as much as you do. we had a pension conference this week. we had 22 public pension plans came up. to a man and woman, they said, tell us when san francisco will sell. we'll buy the securities. these are not folks that care as much as you do and when do about the environment. having said that, the costs go
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simply beyond the one-time kfrts of selling and replacing those securities. well, established investment theory is when you have securities to invest in, you can improve more, and you remove a chunk of securities, you reduce the opportunity to earn a return at every level of risk in the portfolio. that's a concern. it's hard to measure exactly, but energy is 4.5% of the your energy portfolio, 5.9% of russell 1000. 7.9% of the value. so a value manager will have to get rid of 10% of the portfolio.
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on pages 7 and 8, we estimate the offset setting it off, between 5 and 20 basis points. you remember you as a board last fall adopted an asset allocation for the best return you could going forward and the assumptions is that we were going to invest in unconstrained s&p 500 activities and bonds. if we knew we would take 5% away, the projected volatility of what you chose would be higher and to offset that, you would have to absorb a 5- to 20-basis-point cost to the portfolio. >> would you tell us what that amount is in dollars? >> it's in the report. it's anywhere from $5.7 million
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to $23 million annually. >> million? >> million. that's on the equity portfolio, doing those numbers on the bond portfolio. to cost assumes they're tracking the index. and value managers are chosen to add value above the index. value manager is paid for you to determine the security or set of securities are undervalues. and to buy them with the idea of selling them when they're higher valued. energy stocks are susceptible to price fluctuations. backward looking analysis said, should have gotten out of it, but we've had oil and gas prices going down with other days of
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distraction. in the 17 days in january, oil is back up. it's because of a growing economy. when the economy grows, more energy is used. and most of it comes from fossil fuel prices. so prices are up 4.8% with energy. the value managers, the costs are even higher than what i said. on page 10, we note that energy stocks perform particularly well in inflationary environments with growth. we've haven't had that for 10 years, but the possibility -- and that's not our base case. our base case, as you heard, was modest growth in the economies
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going forward. if indeed the tax cut or other things going on cause us to move into a higher growth economy and inflation reasserts itself, that's very good for energy stocks and not very good for anything else. on february 14, you will hear about hedging and the need to do it. the most effective way is to diversify the portfolio, but to have a diversified set of equities in which energy would be won. i don't want to go through too much more. let me close by emphasizing the board's fiduciary duty. new york city's mayor and controllers have made statements about what they'd like to do. there are five funds in new york city. each has a board like you and has an advisor like us. in fact, we advise one of them. those boards will have to go through exactly what you are doing. they haven't done it yet.
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they may decide to divest, but have not taken that action. we did reach out to the 10 largest public advisors and two additional, because we also asked cambridge and they all said they didn't recommend broad divestment. i'm probably the most sensitive person in this room to the environment. i won't go into it. i know you will laugh about it, but the fact is, symbollically using the assets that are trusted to you to make a political statement is not a good fiduciary duty. your duty is to provide the highest return at a reasonable risk to the beneficiaries. we enthusiastically endorse the five earlier steps and we don't recommend a broad-based divestment. >> you talked about the
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potential costs and you said between 5 and 20 basis points -- >> on the equity portfolio. >> which is about $10 billion. if the board were to vote broad-based divestment, everything, it could be higher than 5 to 20 basis points? >> yes. >> and if it was just 5 to 20 basis points, we have an assumed rate of return of 7.5%. i believe your forecast going forward is that we'll probably only earn 7.1%. >> correct. >> if in your analysis, you determine that because of this broad divestment that our rate would go down to 6.9% what will have to happen to our rate of return at some point? >> everybody should understand, this is a closed system.
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the contributions and investment returns have to manage what you pay out in benefits and expenses. we may not want that to be the case. it is absolutely true. if we impair the investments, one of two things happen -- investments have to go up or payouts go down. it will be millions of increased contributions on the part of the city. >> you did say that you thought that there was maybe a smart way to go about this for that reason, you support staff's recommendation. >> absolutely. >> let's proceed with staff's recommendation. >> looking back, you can say
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about retail and a lot of things -- >> how can you say that when our returns are dismal for a 10-year period and you are saying that we keep this set of investments -- how can it be worse? >> what we're getting now is the return in the last 10 years. what has happened during that period to oil and energy prices because we've had an excess supply, they've come down. we don't think that's at stasis. we think that energy prices are likely to rise and what we saw in the past will not be predictive of the future. >> if you think they're going to go up, why don't you recommend that we double up in this category then? you are a consultant. you are giving us advice for now and in the future. so if you believe it's going to go up, why was that not in the
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recommendation that came before the board? >> everybody in this room needs to understand that you hold securities in two places. you give them to managers and those managers make the decision on if the security is attractively valued or not. >> as a consultant, why don't you recommend us investing more money in the field if you think it's going to go up? >> we're not recommending adding additional energy to the portfolio unless a manager hired to make that recommendation determines that that's what they should do. we're arguing that you don't take away that choice from them. the figures i quoted to you do not embed an expectation that energy prices will increase. what they do embed is taking energy away diversifies the
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portfolio. >> you made a statement that we're making a political statement. could you please back that up? my argument to divest is based on return. where does your statement that it's political come from? is it a resolution? are you reading into us? >> that was not you as a board. i'm saying that divestment in gem represents a view that energy is bad and we ought to get out of it. it's not based on forward-looking return and risk sectors. that's not you, your board. divestment in general. >> go back and listen to how you said it and you can determine for yourself. it was a direct statement that it was a political statement by us. >> if you took the action indicated. >> thank you. please. i know we have a lot of questions and a lot of points we
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want to make. >> thank you, president. board members, to begin, i'm going to spend most of my time speaking about the motion that staff is recommending to the board. for reasons i've articulated in 5-27, there are several reasons. i hope you have read them. there are 17 reasons why we're unable to support the motion, but i want to spend most of the time on the motion that we're recommending to the board. the first -- and let me start by talking conceptually. john mentioned early on about having a broad aspiration. you've heard me speak before, our members have not for the most part, but i believe that the human experience is in the midst of a major transportation from the industrial age to the science and tech and innovati
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innovation era. and it has sweeping experience for the human condition. so far, this revolution has been under way for about 30 yearsable it's improved calculations, convenience, and mobility, but it's barely started and it will significantly improve through artificial intelligence, gene therapy, gene editing, electric vehicles, automated vehicles, mobile payments, robotics, everything in the human experience is going to get much, much better over the next number of decades. one of the things that's in this transformation, that is under way, is how we produce energy. what is not known, what is not clear at all, and john, i believe made clear, is the pace, the scale, the timing and who
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the winners and the losers are going to be. i have seen many times through my career of companies who have re-engineered themselves. i could give 100 examples like that. so having to make decisions in the present when the future is unknowable is -- we conduct an extensive amount of research in a granular process. with that in mind, we have made six recommendations to the board. the first is a carbon-constrained strategy. it reduces the carbon emissions in our index strategies by 50% and we're recommending an allocation of $1 billion because even as we see that we're in the
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midst of a revolution in how we produce energy, we don't know the timing of that. we can see it's under way. we don't flow if it's 15 years or 55 years, but we can see it's under way. we also don't know during that time frame what companies are going to re-engineer themselves and what companies will emerge. we can see it's under way and we're confident in recommending a carbon-constrained strategy that reduces our carbon 'emiss n emissions by 50%. that's $4.2 billion. when new york city adopted this, i believe it was 1%. [inaudible] so 1.1%. ours is four time that initial
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scale and i think that new york has or is considering increasing that to 2%. our investment would be double the scale of what the so far leader in this carbon-constrained strategy. when john mentioned vanguard, pioneer, i definitely believe we are and i have more to say about that. the next item, it's groundbreaking and not to be underestimated. we have five people in our public market overseeing $16 billion. they have a ton of responsibility. so having dedicated resources to this can be very impactful for what john and ophere were
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talking about the scale of people, pensions, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, that are engaged in this process. i believe that it was mentioned the collaboration of $27 million worth of assets that we've partner together with. this is relatively new. actions 2, 3 and 4, are a part of taking our engagement up several levels, okay, from having people that do it when they can to full-time, dedicated staff. item number five, pursue renewable energy and carbon-constrained strategies. first, i want to talk about what we've done. so far, we've invested in a
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private equity strategy. we were one of only two investors, institutional investors, in that strategy. one of only two. the others were family offices. unfortunately, we're not a private foundation. we've can't just invest however it is that we've want. we're held to a fiduciary prudence and level of process that a family office or private foundation is not held to. very invested in that strategy and another that the board approved last month. i can't say it's name. i'm not sure if it's closed yet. we invested in a china public equity strategy.
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that may sound strange. china set a goal to have 10% of auto production be electric vehicles. do you know where the u.s. is? under 1. and they will go to 12% in 2020. and they will march higher from there. >> how difficult is it to find those investments? is it an issue -- >> in that instance, in that instance, we're the only public pension plan in that manager. $4 billion. they don't do any marketing. it's all word of mouth. you don't find them in any manager databases. 16% plus annualized net returns over 20 years. >> i think what she's saying is, is it hard to find a manager that will earn a sufficient return and find things that
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align with our values? >> it is hard in two -- a couple of regards. manager research is hard. most managers are going to underperform. i think significant asset returns are achievable through active management and selection. it's hard. most will not do well. and it takes a lot of work. do you remember the hours? 600 hours. >> 600 hours. >> to research that one strategy. that one strategy, it was up 50% last year. >> what i think we're seeing -- and this is something we'll have to fight against -- we're going to see more and more people
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wanting more and more renew aab. and that means there's going to be crowding. we'll say, there's not enough for us now, so how do we find these or what do we do? >> let me come to that. this china manager took a 10% position, large position. and we made a large investment. we have $25 million in this one company. and that company is the leader in electric vehicles and lithium battery production in china. i think they're going to be huge. now i amway out on the edge in terms of how i see e.b.s developing. john and i were talking about this several months ago. right now, it's less than 1%.
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i think in 25 years, it will be over 50. not everybody believes that. there are two large flagship names that don't think that e.b.s will ever take off. i couldn't disagree more. in china, because they've set a national policy goal that that company is a big winner. >> let's get back to the report. >> i will catch up real quick. other things we've done. we did the fossil fuel index. we divested in nine coal companies. there is still more we can do here in term of pursuing renewables and carbon-constrain strategy, but it takes time,
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resources, research and process. we all have 24/7. when we spend here with you, it has to come from something else. we can come up with good ideas. we have an edge of manager research being in the bay area. all the best managers in the world are in the bay area. it's easy to go to asia. it's easy to go to new york, flagship city to the world. but we need resources. we definitely need to conduct research. and a process, you would expect nothing less than that in any investment we make, that we conduct a granular research before we make decisions. i'm confident if we do these six things, we're a vanguard and a pioneer and out in front.
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and that our returns will continue to be as they've been for the last four years, that they will continue to be top percentile. >> can you touch base on the sixth point of your recommendation? >> sure. number one is carbon-constrained strategy for $1 billion. 4% of our assets. twice what new york is now. second, hire a director of social responsibility investle ing to coordinate level two of the board's policies and also recommending to hire an analyst in that as well. number three, to partner together with other pension plans and key institutional investors. you've heard of their growing size. oil companies -- and oil is only 30% of global energy production. last year the world consumed 1.5
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trillion gallons of gasoline. how much resources do you think the companies have? do you think we should walk away rather than try to engage and effect and change how they allocate capital when they have the kind of resources that they do? i don't view that as a responsible thing to do. i think we should try to effect change. number four, increase activities as an asset owner through p.r.i., which is also a new development for sfpers. and there are three pages in staff's recommendation on various actions, first of all, the principles, and then the suggested actions. there are three pages of those. and we would like to get to work on all of those. and we're going to.
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number five, renewable and carbon-constrained investments, some of which we've done and there's more we can do. number six, develop a responsible phased, engaged approach to diverse from the worst of the worst of a case-by-case basis. each of the companies are their own individuals. each of those companies is the own story, they have their own past, present, and planned future. i don't view it as responsible to divest of all 200 in a lump sum, especially if we learn through engagement that they have -- maybe they've been a bad actor in the past. none of us is the sum of our worst mistakes.
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none of us is. we have to look to the future. who will be a good corporate citizen. who is helping us to develop analysis. we have to develop research of which to divest in any company and i know you would require that of us to do so. >> i would like to go to public comment in a second. but there was a comment about a financial basis for divested. had we divested in may, how much money we would have earned or lost since may, 2017? >> as of december, so i need to update the numbers based on alan's comments, we would have lost about $120 million, $130 million. since july 1, i should say. i don't have the data back to
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the exact date of the motion. from july 1 to yesterday or the day before, we would have lost about $120 million. that's from -- if we had divested of the c.u. 200, those companies, those investments, have made $130 million approximately since july 1. now depending on where we made those investments to, they've outperformed the s&p 500 or global index by about 10%. >> you are saying those energy stocks have outperformed the index -- >> by about 10%. the total return to 23 or 24 to about 13 or 14. >> is that assuming that wire holding that in cash?
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>> so that assumed divestment. if we had invested it back to the msci, the net effect would still be about $50 million, if we had taken it out of the c.u. 200, put it in a global index, because it would have cost us $50 million in six months. >> if you blanketed everything and didn't go to each individually? >> correct. and that's before transaction costs. >> is it fair to say rather than cherry picking which years, because we can go back a year or two and figure out the deepest hole, but if we took our $400 million in this sector, we made 3.8% or in the s&p 500 would have made 83% and that's a $400
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million differential. >> even further, go back 25 years. >> you can always identify a starting point -- i was asking the question that was given to m me. if we had invested in energy the last 10 years, we would have made more money investing in the index. going back 20, 25 years, you would have been better with the current investments. >> so can you give me the return of the c.u. 200 for the last 25 years versus the s&p 500? >> c.u. 200 is not an active strategy that publishes returns or its holdings every year, so technically i can't. the only thing i can do is take
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its current holdings -- >> and go back 25 years. >> that's right. but you don't know that that would have been -- >> but what would that have been? >> i don't have the answer, but could i do that. >> how about the energy index? if you went back 25 years versus 10 years -- we know for 10 years, it's -- you have to look at markets over full-market cycles. if you said 25 years, which one -- >> this is on page 21, if you would like to refer. and you will see that over the past 20 years is the energy indexes outperformed by about 20 basis points. it has had a bloody, horrible last 10 years. over the last 30 years, though, it's outperformed by 1.1. you are getting to something meaningful when you talk 1.1 over 30 years, compounded,
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that's like 50%. >> what is that in dollars? >> if you are talking -- >> our dollars for our pension. >> energy index is about 6% or 7% on about $12 billion. so that's a $700 million investment. we are under weight energy, by the way, because of the things we've done. i would need time to do the math. >> before we go to public comment, i want to bring to the attention of the public that the city attorney has informed us that we are not able to vote on this motion until each member of the public has had an opportunity to comment.
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so with that said, i need to leave. i'm sorry. i want to vote. so perhaps you can self-regulate whether or not you need to comment. not trying to stifle public comment, for the record, but there's a limited amount of time. >> what time do you need to leave? >> i have a hard stop time at 4:00. i announced this earlier. it's no surprise i love you, too, because i can't be here all day. >> so -- i think supervisor peskin is here and would like to make some comments and we have, jed holtzman that would like to open up the public comment as well. mr. president, the rest is for you. >> we have about 100 speakers cards. so about one minute apiece, it's
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100 minutes. that would take us to about 4:40 p.m. i'm not asking anyone to not speak. you have the right to speak. let's start off public comment with supervisor peskin, please. sfwlt thank you, president, honor ab honorab honorable members, i think the last title i was here four years ago when i turned 50 and then unretired and got my job back. thank you to my colleague, supervisor cohen, for the continued interest for what is a fiduciary responsibility and moral imperative of our time. i cannot implore you enough to do something that is significant
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and meaningful. aspirational goals are lovely. time is of the essence in this matter. the year that i came in here to retire is the year after supervisor cohen and my former colleague supervisor avalos had passed a resolution. in the 10 years i've been on the board of supervisors, i've been reticent to influence the investment decisions of this body. and i understand that as somebody that votes on the budget every year. and i understand we make contributions to the retirement system and that the better you perform the less we have to take out of the general fund. i get that. but i also get that we have a seawall that needs to be armored because of sea level rise. as a remember of the california coastal commission, we saw more
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emergency permits than in any previous year. mr. martin is right. nobody is denying it, but time is of the essence. i'm not interested in headlines, and i don't say that about mr. de blasio in new york. i'm interested in something with real dates, real teeth. to that end, i'm honored to be part of a national movement with labor and people that stood against the dakota access pipeline and it is the imperative of our time to have real, meaningful action. and i say that five years after the board of supervisors, left, right, and center, unanimously passed a resolution that we recommitted to with a new complement of supervisors in 2017. please divest as quickly as possible. and i don't claim to be an investment genius, but as to the types of assets that have not performed for 10 years and five
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years, i see no reason that those cannot be sold immediately. i think that would send a message to the investment community. it would send a message it other retirement systems that san francisco means business. bottom line, it has to have dates in it. we can't wait around for reports and more strategies. it's time to act now. thank you. [applause] >> mr. holtzman, i didn't call you, but thank you very much. sorry. i have a whole stack here. i'm going to try to call four or five at a time. if you are next door and you hear your name, come over. first up, pam something lee. pam ti lee.
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and i appreciate everyone's enthusiasm, but every time you clap, it slows down the process and makes it harder for everyone to get up and speak. following mrs. lee will be ami hahn, local 21. followed by sara greenwald. >> i will make it brief. >> thank you, supervisor cohen. i encourage you to speak and to act accordingly because water is life and to divest. and i'm hoping that other speakers that are here today can decline to speak because we need to have the vote to have happen. i'm making it brief. please vote yes. thank you. >> thank you. up next, we have mihan from local 21, followed by sara greenwald. >> good afternoon,
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commissioners. i'm staff at local 21. i have a letter that our retirement committee has drafted that i wanted to read to you guys. >> do you have a copy for us? >> i do. i only have two copies. >> we want to be sure that the board has one so it reflects in the record. >> local 21 represents a great many active employees and retirees of the city and county of san francisco that have a sincere interest in the responsible management of the pension fund. local 21 pension advisory committee is made up of active city employees and staff that are tasked with providing oversight on behalf of the workers. we've reviewed the staff recommendation and unanimously
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voted to communicate the following. first, the members of local 21 are firmly dedicated to the responsible care taking of our environment and taking appropriate steps to limit the impact of fossil fuel usage. second, the committee is encourages by the six-point recommendation for taking action on this topic, but would like to request more information regarding specific timelines for each of the action items lefted in the staff plan. the committee would like to communicate their grave concern regarding the possibility of a mass divestment of fossil fuels within a short time frame. the committee would advocate that the board undertake no such rash action until completing a complete analysis of the financial impact the
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