>> and the city of san francisco would like your assistance, the board meeting is now called to order. due to covid-19 health emergency and given the public health recommendations issued by the city and county of the san francisco public health, and governor newsome, and the restrictions on the teleconference. we will be virtually with all members and staff participating today via teleconference. and to ensure the safety of the board, the staff, and the members of the public. now public notice for this meeting and on the web page we ask the public to participate remotely by writing to the board or leaving a voicemail message. for all comments received in advance of the meeting we have received and we appreciate these

comments. while technology allows us to hold these meetings via teleconference, it may not be as seamless as it would like to be. there will be gaps in some airtime, staff -- at times the staff transitions between the speakers and the callers. know that we are doing the best that we possibly can and we ask for your understanding and patience as we are all learning this new way of working together. a reminder to the board members to mute themselves to minimize the background noise. board members will have to remember to unmute themselves to comment. again, we're going to ask everyone to be patient as we make these adjustments. madam secretary, roll call, please. >> clerk: [roll call] we do have

a quorum. president bridges? number two, communications. due to the covid-19 health emergency and t due to the covid-19 health emergency and to protect the board members, and the employees and the public, the system is closed. however, members will be participating in a meeting remotely.

this precaution is taken pursuant to the local state, and federal orders directives and orders. the board members will attend via video conference and the meeting will be to the same extent as they are physically present. public comments are available on each item on this agenda on channel 26 and sfgov-tv.org and we are streaming the number across the screen. each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. comments are opportunities to speak during public comment period and are available via phone, by calling 415-655-0001, and access 4165792433. and then pound and pound again. when connected you will hear the meeting discussion, and you will be muted and in listen mode only. when your item comes up, press

star, 3, to be added to the queue. and call from a quiet location and speak clearly and slowly and turn down your tv or radio. alternatively you may submit public comment in either of the following ways. email to public commentat sfgov-tv.org. and public comment lines 415-487-7220. and public comment via email or by recording it will be included as part of the official file. president bridges? >> okay. at this time the board will be going into closed session. the board will begin with general public comment for no earlier than 2:00 p.m.

we'll take public comment and we're going into closed session at this time. madam secretary, please open up the phone lines for public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide public comment on this item should call 1-(415)-655-0001. access code 1465792433. and then pound, and then pound again. if you haven't already done so, press star, 3, to line up to speak. the system prompt will indicate that you have raised your hand. wait until the system indicates that you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. please state your names and make your comments. you will have the standard two minutes to provide your comments. moderator, do we have any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is now closed.

president bridges? >> commissioners, please join me in closed session in this meeting now. thank you very [roll call] fbz

. >> clerk: we have a quorum. >> motion is in order to vote whether to disclose the discussion held in closed session under san francisco administrative code section 67.12-a. commissioners, may i have a motion whether to disclose or not to disclose? >> i'll make a motion not to

disclose. >> second. >> second. it has been moved by commissioner casciato and seconded by commissioner driscoll. at this time, we'll take public comment. [inaudible] >> please press star, three to be added to the queue. if you are already on hold, please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. again, it is moved by commissioner casciato and seconded by commissioner driscoll that we not discuss the matters held in closed

session. madam secretary, a roll call vote, please. [roll call] >> clerk: you have four yeses. motion passes. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> clerk: item number 6, general public comment.

>> commissioners, i received one public comment. in the september board meeting, you agreed to invest $300 million into an investment called alanis. it's in mostly european securities. our pension fund is over diversefied, high risk, high cost, low liquidity investment. to quote warren buffet, wise diversefication is only warranted if investors do not understand what they're doing. that's the end of his public comment.

>> thank you, mr. hughes, for submitting that comment. madam secretary, please open the phone lines for general public comment. >> clerk: members of the public who wish to provide public comment should call 415-655-0001, access code 146-579-2423, then pound, and pound again. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussion but mutes and in listening mode only. when your item comes up, dial star, three to be added to the speaker line. best practices had to calling from a quiet location, speak slowly and clearly, and keep your microphone muted. madam operator, do we have any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary,

we have no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. madam pra madam president, we have no public callers on the line. >> thank you. madam second, next item, please. >> clerk: item 5, approval of the minutes of the september 9, 2020 retirement board meeting. may i have a motion? >> so moved. >> may i have a second. >> yeah. >> second. >> it has been moved by commissioner chiu and seconded by commissioner casciato that we adopt the minutes from the september 9, 2020 retirement board meeting. we'll take public comment at this time.

>> please press star, three to be added to the queue at this time [inaudible] moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is closed. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. roll call vote, please. [roll call] if . >> clerk: by a unanimous vote, the motion passes.

president bridges? item number 6, action item, consent calendar. >> consent calendar. let's [inaudible]. >> i'd just like to ask about item number 6-e. >> 6-e, commissioner casciano? >> yes. >> yes. that would be what would be exhibited in the board packet,

and also, they could present an oral presentation of the conference, also, if they wanted to at this point. >> okay. so we're just moving it from the back end to the -- you know, what we've gotten is, in the last couple months, just moved it from the back end to the front end of the agenda, correct? >> no. the comments -- the good of the order comments are still at the end of the meeting. this is just for approved -- it used to be approved travel and attendance at conferences, but the board policy requires that a board member present, you know, a review of the agenda. so this does not replace the good of the order. the good of the order -- >> no, i didn't mean that. i didn't mean good of the order at all. we used to have it the back end -- we used to have the copy of the form, and that'll be included in this item 6-e?

>> yes, that's correct. >> so the form will be included, and when we make a motion for the minutes, if anybody wanted to make a motion regarding the minutes, this is where they do it? >> that's absolutely correct. >> okay. i'll make a motion to approve it. >> commissioner casciato, to approve the consent calendar? >> that's correct. >> okay.

>> second. >> okay. we have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar. public comment, please. [inaudible]. >> operator: madam secretary, we have no callers on the line. >> clerk: public comment is closed. president bridges? >> yes. roll call vote, madam secretary. [roll call]

>> clerk: we have four yeses. motion passes. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> clerk: item number 7, discussion item, annual esg update. >> thank you, madam secretary. at this time, mr. coaker, i'll let you make the introductions of the members that will be presenting the usg updates. >> thank you, president bridges. [inaudible] collaborating with others on esg initiatives, and hiring a director of esg investing. andrew collins was hired in such a position a few months later, and andrew was tasked with building a fact-based data

driven, research-intense approach dedicated to carbon related investment reps, and he has been doing so sense. we hired ann, who was hired a few months ago. there is a series of six recommendations. five are action items, and one is an update. recent initiatives have included staff making an ambition, staying in ambition to become carbon neutral by 2050, and that we'll have an annual update and strategic review every five years. we'll ask kurt to provide

additional context, and then, we'll turn it over to andrew. >> thank you. we hired andrew about 2.5 years ago, and i don't know that we intended to have six items presented at one board meeting. so the consequence, andrew has a lot of work to be done leading up to the october board meeting. i do want to acknowledge the vost amount of work that he did and that adrian did. adrian only joined six weeks ago. i do encourage everyone to read these. we have six different topics. the discussions here are quite thorough. we have one discussion item, five action items. we'll begin with our annual esg update, which will provide a little bit of sfers update in the e.s.g. space and then

provide the three pillars of our e.s.g. program, which are ownership, investments, an area that i think we've made extraordinary progress in across all asset classes at sfers, and then finally, discussion of our collaboration efforts with the public at large. we'll then turn to four action items that both have been our targeted divestment companies which have included tobacco companies, sudan, oil and coal, and we'll end with an update on our climate action plan and actions forward. so andrew, i'll turn program o

year. and just want to start out, i guess, with a few comments and

observations about what's happened more broadly in the e.s.g. discipline in the last year. like everything, it's been an interesting and hectic year between the economic impacts and volatility in the markets due to covid, and the shutdown, the massive social movements calling attention to issues of systemic racism and inequity, and then, more recently, the wildfires in california and throughout the state, all of these things really intersect with a lot of the e.s.g. themes that we look at in the investment process. and given everything, if i had to look at one theme of the year to highlight, i think it would be the social pillar, the s within e.s.g. has certainly gotten a lot more focus from companies and investors over

the last year. i think over a decade, decade and a half of a lot of focus on environmental issues and certainly corporate governance, as we think about worker welfare in the light of expectations around being an essential worker, certainly, employee pay, benefits, issues of diversity and inclusion in the workforce, corporate culture, i think these things have come into much clearer view for a lot of corporations and investors over the last year. and really, instead of turning away from any e.s.g., the efforts, i think we've seen everybody lean into them and realizing even during a period of stress and market stress. these issues are really important. this continues to come up with our managers, as well, as we talk about it with them. at the same time, you know, climate has still been a big -- a big theme for the year, and

the year actually started, interestingly, with a letter to c.e.o.s, where we talked about funding due to climate risk, and how that will affect investments in the economy over the long-term, and black rock, as one example, given their size and an assess manager, black rock updated its voting policies around climate risk. these are meaningful steps that -- that have occurred over this period. and, you know, corporate actions have also progressed a lot in terms of climate change. you've seen a ton of companies

making net-zero commitments by 2050, and these are not just companies that have minimal environmental impact, these are companies like shell and b.p., the largest corporations in the u.s. like dominion have made commitments around the upcoming carbon neutral, and greenhouse gas emissions neutral. microsoft went so far as to say that they're going to invest $1 billion to negate their carbon footprint that they've ever invested in the company. i think the social factors have become more and more important. so i'll -- i'll start here with just a reminder of our, you know, e.s.g. beliefs, and a bit of history of our e.s.g.

policy. our core belief is that e.s.g. factors can and do influence outcomes in nearly every investment that we wake, but how they do so is typically w nuanced in each case. we really take what i'd say a principled approach to e.s.g. considerations and not a prescriptive approach to e.s.g. we began the effort quite sometime ago in 1988, when we first had our social investment policies that's evolved a lot to an e.s.g. policy that kurt described has these three pillars of active ownership where we think about influencing public equity outcomes in our portfolio

management, voting our proxies, we integrate e.s.g. considerations into oush manager selection process, and our ongoing relationships with those managers and then e.s.g. collaboration and information, where we work with other stakeholders in the financial community, certainly with our wi beneficiaries to communicate with e.s.g. i'll provide a little bit of an overview of what we've done in 2020. i'll skip over these slides for now, but it's a history of e.s.g. over the last 20 years, if folks want to take a look at that at some point. 2020 here -- and i'll try to make this screen a bit bigger

here so folks can see it. hopefully, that's a bit better. for 2020, i really want to highlight, i guess, four things, four focus areas from the last year. one, bill mentioned we announced the ambition that the trust become net-zero by 2050. this was, you know, an important step in really expanding our view of climt risk among publicly traded oil and gas classes and -- climate risk among publicly traded oil and gas classes and thinking about climate risk that goes much further than just thinking about our exposure to oil and gas companies. two, we continue to support and expand our engagement on climate risk, where we acted

either as a lead engager or even in a supporting role with over 20 companies -- oil and gas companies, utilities companies, where we, you know, sat down with those companies, provided input that shapes policies around decarbonization targets, enhanced transparency around e.s.g. practices. third, we'd like to highlight that we continued to prioritize board diversity, and that was thr through our voting efforts and engagement. we voted against the chair of nominating government committees of roughly 3,000 companies that had fewer than 20% women on the board, and we voted against entire boards where there were no women on the board this year. so those were updates to our

voting policy. we continued our engagement efforts through a 30% coalition, and, you know, i think those were very successful in the four companies that we engaged with through those efforts, and we were really asking, you know, those companies, you know, two main things. one was to think about actually adding additional women to their board and then second was to ask them to think about updating their corporate charters to actually implement things like the winnie rule, which commits them to not commit to adding additional women to their board but considering a diverse search and looking for diverse

candidates when doing that search. next, and looking forward a bit, we've joined a partnership with three other california pensions: calstrs, calpers, and lucera. this is a reminder that our efforts are not focused just on gender but on race and ethnicity as we engage with companies, and that's part of our corporate and governance belief, workforces that are reflective of society at large tend to perform better over the longer term. and the fourth area to really talk a bit about is our e.s.g. investment management pillar. we really deepened our e.s.g. engagement with our own

external managers, and this is across asset classes. so not only are we conducting e.s.g. due diligence when we make a new recommendation to invest, but we really have to take a step back on some of our core relationships in the private equity allocation and the absolute return program and have sent questionnaires and engaged in conversation with those managers around their own e.s.g. integration practices, and i think have had some really, really productive conversations there, where we've learned a lot. they've asked for input, and we've learned about how they're shaping their e.s.g. program going forward. we also have, in our public equity program and fixed income program, we've begun a deep dive in engaging with our managers around climate risk, and that's part of our net-zero by 2050 ambition. a starting point there is we

send a details questionnaire around climate risk and then had deep dive conversation around that. again, a lot of really constructive learnings from those engagement efforts, partneri partnering -- the e.s.g. teams partnering with the investment teams. so we'll turn to slide 7 here now, talk a little bit more about other active ownership activities that i didn't just touch on. progress over the last year, you know, started with an update to our learning guidelines. remember where i said we strengthened our voting requirements around board diversity, but other shareholder proposals related to human capital, gender pay gap proposals that come to shareholder votes, and we took another way that we look at

remuneration packages and really revised some of those core aspects to plant a stake in the ground where we believe there should be proper remuneration for proper performance by companies and c.e.o.s. so with respect to that, we ended up voting against 22% pay on [inaudible] proposals, we're continuing to scrutinize excessive executive compensation that's not linked with performance. in terms of engagement activities, i mentioned those

we had with climate risk, with oil and gas companies. we've also engaged some retailers like dick's sporting goods and walmart on firearm retail practices through a partnership that we have with calstrs and other active asset managers. those have been really productive, as well, to think about how do you responsibly and safely participate in retail of firearms? and then, we also had a, you know, several other conversations throughout the year. things ranging from sitting down with pork and beef processing company to talk about their covid response and worker health and safety, sitting down with a big three

audio o automaker to think about their services there, professional lobbying firm around professional lobbying and disclosures. and those are things that we'll do if they arrive if there are particular votes coming up if there's opportunities to partner with other investors on those efforts. we'll now move onto the second pillar here, e.s.g. investment. to some degree, this is the core of our e.s.g. program, supporting the investment teams due diligence ongoing monitoring of our investment manager relationships. as i said, we've really strengthened that, not only at the due diligence phase, but also, as we think about ongoing relationships that we have with

managers, where we may invest fund after funds, and have tried to engage and build relationships around e.s.g. to learn what those practices are and form, you know, our own views of their investment approach and style. [please stand by]

so some of that is just the overall efficiency from and then revenue growth occurring in the overall economy, but we've decarbonized faster. why is that so? a couple of things are going on. one is that we are underweight to the most carbon intensive sectors, and you can see this in the chart on the right. the darker lines are our

portfolio weight and then the dotted lines are the index weight. so the utilities, materials and energy sector. so we are underweight to sews te sectors, so that's improves our carbon weight. some of the most carbon efficient sectors. so those two factors that underweight and overweight contribute significantly to our reduced carbon footprint. the second thing was at the board's direction we invested $1 billion of our equity portfolio to two sectors that had reduced carbon footprints versus their benchmarks. that's the goldman sachs strategy and the global equity strategy, both of those have resulted in additional carbon

intensity reductions against our benchmark. one thing interestingly that we looked at this year was actually, you know, any short positions we had in our public equity portfolio and the carbon footprint associated with that part of the portfolio. and not by design, but as it turns out, our portfolio is overweight, the portfolio is overweight, and this is in aggregate, right, to high carbon sectors, like utilities and materials, and then even within other sectors, there are greater short positions in more carbon intensive companies, and that's true in the real estate sector, it's true in the technology sector. so this is, you know, further reducing our exposure to carbon risk, if you want to think of it that way, through those

positions. if we look beyond the public equity and fixed income portfolio, we're really limited by data. but one thing we've tried to do in the report is show from a sector perspective our allocation to the three most carbon intensive sectors, and in aggregate, if we look at our overall, the overall sfers portfolio and compare that to a 70/30 portfolio, we are significantly underweight utilities and materials and have [indiscernible] sustained energy exposure. if you think of using assumptions and averages, we would have a much lower aggregate footprint, most likely in the absence of data which doesn't exist to just think about exposure there. every project we do, we look at

our investment exclusions that we've put in place since 1998 with tobacco and we've works with msci to license some customized indices so we can have some sort of model on what impact those may have on planned returns and risks since we put those in place. basically what we do is we licence an index that excludes the companies that we've excluded. we compare that to the generic msci index and we assume that any gains or losses were reinvested with, you know, the same allocation that we had to each asset class. over time, you know, our portfolios shifted, of course, over those many years for different reasons. so this relies on some assumptions to get a good sense

of, as we said, a positive or negative impact. as you can see, in aggregate it's been negative. that's been really driven just by tobacco exclusion that we've had in place since 1998 that was, you know, sometimes positive, sometimes negative, but really just due to compounding effects, mostly that in aggregate has cost about $88 million over that time period. in aggregate, the other exclusions can be said to be negligible or contributed positively. we have assumed over the last year, you know, a negligible but positive interaction from all of those exclusions that you can see in that final column year over year impact fy-19 to 20. the chart just shows sort of the

volatility of those relative returns look like over time, and you can see that they're in different time periods they contribute in different ways. (one moment please). -- we continue to be very engaged with series, they coordinate the climate 100 initiative and the carbon asset working group we participate. i've mentioned the 30% coalition

and the council of institutional investors is a long-time membership that we've maintained and we participate in their events and take advantage of their resources. as well, i've also mentioned the principles for responsivelyian firearms industry. -- civilian firearms industry. we continue to do transparent and conduct esg reporting through presentations like this, publishing materials, updating earlier in the year or, you know, later if you think about -- our next report on our proxy voting and shareholder activities and we did a policy refresh, as you all recall, last fall and the beginning of this year on the esg policy and the proxy voting guidelines, and then built out the esg section or reference in the investment

policy statement as well. so i will close there, put my first slide up here. but that's the update, program update. i'm happy to answer any questions there dive in. as you know, this is not a voting item. >> commissioner: thanks, andrew. did you have anything to add to that? >> commissioner: maybe just one or two questions. the platform that andrew just described has become a valuable working tool for institutional investors around the country. in addition, as andrew described, in each of our

investment recommendations now for quite some time we've been including an esg assessment in every recommendation, and also over time we've seen the volume and the depth of that assessment has also increased [indiscernible]. so you will have seen those now for probably the better part of a year. thank you. >> i would like to ask a question of andrew. >> please. [indiscernible]. >> andrew, how would you describe how the state of esg is -- you know, we've gone through periods where there's been a lot of activism, but where would you say that -- the movement has grown to or settled

at right now and moving forward are we making good progress? are we on good lines? are we in conflict? will we have any conflicts or will we have more collaboration moving forward here? >> yeah, i think -- i would say more of the latter. it's a great, great question. but certainly i think, you know, particularly last year where i think investor expectations and corporate expectations are around a lot of esg practices, those social factors that i mentioned but also the climate action you're seeing, sort of in the absence of any regulation, shows a lot of alignment with, you know, investor views and corporate views and actions. so it has been highly collaborative. again, there have been fewer shareholder proposals introduced at public companies over the last year, and a lot of this is

actually, you know, due to the fact that companies are willing to engage with investors constructively in order to address esg concerns, which is really good to see. we've also seen an explosion of esg efforts outside of the public equity and fixed income asset classes. so, you know, the private equity industry is doing a lot to address esg factors in their own portfolios, but also looking internally at their own firms and talking about, you know, how to think about esg risks, opportunities there, in the way that they run their own firms. so i would say, you know, a lot more work to do on a lot of challenging issues, but very constructive, in my view. >> thank you. yesterday i had the opportunity to be able to watch for about an

hour and 21 minutes the apple rollout, apple's rollout of their new products. and one of the things i was impressed with is that they focused on their new buildings, apple campuses and their production lines that they were carbon neutral, they said, we're -- one point was 450 tons of carbon monoxide, the equivalent of taking 10,000 cars or more. they made some points about what products they're using to produce their phones, et cetera. so i was pretty impressed. do you think that's -- would you say that's a common thing? is that special to apple, or is that a common thing for some of the other companies? >> with the hesitation of sort of commenting on whether a company is a leader or not, i think -- i will say that there

are a set of companies that are sort of taking -- leading efforts to integrate these considerations into product design and building management and workforce management. i think, you know, as i sort of alluded to, the tech industry has really planted a stake in the ground. many of the largest tech companies have made commitments around carbon neutrality, and that includes their products, their supply chains, their own building operations, and we've seen this i think, you know, in response to a couple of things: one is their own employees and wanting to be a good corporate citizen to attract and maintain the best employees, as more and more employees care about these issues and the corporations that they work for and, two, that the customer base, you know, customers have access to more and better data on this, they

care about it, they're willing to make purchasing decisions around esg-related issues. and then third is just, you know, resource constraints. you know, a company like apple relies on a lot of, you know, materials from that can be resource constrained and still operating efficiently using recycling, securing access to materials like cobalt that have esg [indiscernible] is important for them. >> thank you. adrian? >> commissioners, you have questions for andrew on the update on esg? >> just a quick question from me, and that is whether, andrew, you've been presenting in front of other audiences at all about

what the sfers esg portfolio looks like and what we've been doing? >> yes. i do present to, you know, peer

paragraph how it's actually groundbreaking in many respects compared to other pension plans and i think those kinds of things are important just to make sure that we put that message out there. >> certainly. yeah, i'm happy to, if you have ideas on that, i'm happy to take that input. >> andrew, i want you to know, i've sent this document to all five of my advisors as examples of what a well-managed plan does with esg. it's a very well-done document.

>> that's great. andrew, i wanted to ask, and it's good to see that the 22 different [indiscernible] because i notice something that [indiscernible] for the last five or six years and i know it's been a huge component of the push. has there been resistance, though, on that front? because it moves but it moves slowly. but i'm not sure what's happening there. >> there have not -- you know, there continues to be a pretty low rate of [indiscernible] for executive compensation, and i think it's been perhaps less of an investor focus area over the last several years. i think what will be interesting to think about is, you know, going forward into this 2021 proxy season is executive compensation in light of, you

know, covid and layoffs and restructuring, and i think, you know, you will see probably pushback from investors around compensation that seems -- you know, may be in line with performance over the past year period, but also, you know, when wages have been cut or layoffs occurred with workers. >> exactly. yes, i would be curious to see data around that. the other thing you talked about was the climate action 100 and [indiscernible] and various initiatives. have we seen any of our other managers join this, the climate action 100? i know [indiscernible] was probably one of the first instances. i would hope more managers would be feeling that. >> we do have other managers that are both participants. we have other managers who have expressed interest and are

considering participating and then we certainly have, you know, many managers who are engaging with portfolio companies around climate risk but perhaps not formally through that initiative. >> okay. and then my other concern is, we talked about diversity and i like what you've done in terms of the work around that. do we use that same [indiscernible] in terms of rps and other things, do we really apply the sfers criteria for the type of diversity we're looking for across the board, including [indiscernible] and other sectors? >> i can't fully comment on that. i guess what i can say is, you know, there is proposition 209 in place in california -- >> i know. that's why i -- >> i know.

up to a vote, that's in november. but we do not -- i want to make clear that we do not ask about diversity characteristics when we send out an rfp or enter a new relationship or a new contract with an external party. we're wanting to be not running afoul of (distortion). >> -- the board is engaging, we do request form 1 information which basically gives demographic as well as gender and racial diversity within an organization, which is part of the consideration. certainly we've never -- again, [indiscernible] can't target it

but as we send out an rfp for consultants, we would request that information. we would certainly consider it. a manager's selection process is obviously a different process. >> right, exactly. and then my last question is on part of the oil and gas piece, and i want to check if fracking is part of that piece because i don't see that in there, if they address fracking as part of oil and gas. >> we do not specifically differentiate between the type of extraction technology that a firm is using. so within our portfolio, you know, we have exposure to companies with all types of resources, and many of those,

particularly in north america, right, are fracking. >> and they usually disclose it in lots of cases. that's why -- >> yes. >> any other questions for andrew? andrew, bill, i'll turn it back to you. but, andrew, thank you. that was very comprehensive. and i do agree with carmen, there should be a way that others should know about the work that we're doing around esg because i think it's important because it's one of the issues that come up at the board of supervisors and other places what sfers is doing on esg. so we have to figure out a way to get some of the messaging out so they'll know -- because i think you've done a lot of work to really make sfers in the top tier when it comes to esg and the types of services [indiscernible].

>> we could certainly highlight it in our annual report. we have an investment [indiscernible] but certainly for the public consumption we could ask andrew to basically update us on all of the activities that were done during the year and include that very specifically as a section of our annual report and that at least would be a start. we've issued press releases, and press releases are out there. but i think if someone really wants to recommend that they look at what we're doing, maybe the annual report, which should be available online, would be the best place to sort of highlight our activities. >> before we go to the next item, i want to comment about compensation. it's of special interest to me

in the esg suite. i think that is the "s" part is underappreciated. i do think that capitalism and connecting capital and finance needs to work both profitably for institutionals while also delivering better outcomes for people and also that there's work to do and work that should be done at the executive level, better recognizing and rewarding the value of work both on an absolute level, each and every individual, and also in relation to one another. >> i concur with you, bill, on that. that's a conversation you and i have had many times. that's why i like the focus on what's going on with the investment team on esg and that's why i asked the question

as well, [indiscernible] to do something differently to address the "s" in the esg. >> if there are no other board questions or comments, let's move on to the next item. >> open for public comment, right? >> yes. if you have not already done so, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. (inaudible). moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are [indiscernible]. >> thank you.

>> (caller): hi, thank you. you sounded almost inaudible, so if everyone who is not speaking could mute their lines, i think that would probably help. my name is judd. i'm a senior [indiscernible] san francisco and sent over five years working with board and staff on making their level of knowledge on climate risk and bringing in experts and data to that effect. i want to thank andrew for all of this work. this is truly night and day from the total inaction from this agency before you brought him on board and it is a truly great body of work by any measure. i also desperately wish this body of work had been kicked off in 2013 or '14 when reams of data and multiple experts were brought to you all. the level of action on this is not remotely commensurate with the climate emergency. your posture is divorced from science on the carbon budget. it seems like me like

22-year-olds crowding into bars without masks because they know on balance it's other people they're going to injure and kill and not themselves. i'm very glad to hear in this report that staff began development of a climate action plan to work holistically. i would argue it's quite belated and also quite urgent and would love to hear from staff about the time line for its release and presentation to the public. to the board, if this only includes public equities, it will not be a real plan. esg for your public equity and anything goes for your private investments is not separate but equal and it's not a good base for a esg -- (inaudible). what if the city and county were foremost in the country and only incarcerating 45% of individuals experiencing homelessness within a year. even an elected official would not have that attitude. you would be focused on the real

world and what the actual policy outcome is, not in relation to other cities. to that end we need not to see whether we're doing better than -- >> (caller): this is jack. i'm a retiree. i appreciate andrew's report. and i have to say, when i first heard that the portfolio would be net zero by 2050, i thought, well, that's kind of a joke because fossil fuels will be worthless by then. the state has already committed to being carbon neutral by 2045. but i think i came to understand that this is not just talking about getting kid of fossil fuels, you're talking about climate action 100 and all of the companies and their carbon footprint. so that is really good. i'm really happy to hear that you're doing that. companies like general motors,

caterpillar, all of these companies using fuels. we need to get rid of it. that's a great use of our esg resources. i'm not going to be able to stay for the report that's coming up later, but i do have to call your attention to page 12 of the climate risk memo which points out that in the last ten years, the index has gone up by about 90% whereas the energy funds have gone down by about 30%. so it's no wonder that there's only $108 million left of the publicly traded funds. but i would also urge you to look -- well, also the current divestment, $406,000 out of that $108 million, it's less than 1% per year. that's like a 100-year divestment plan. that's way too slow. you have to move that up a whole lot faster. i'd like you to take a look at the real assets update that came out in july -- it has a lot of

energy funds in there too. the climate transition risk that you talk about is to understand and manage risk. okay. understanding it is very simple. science says climate change is caused by fossil fuels and we have to -- that's easy. manage risk. very simple. get out of fossil fuels. so don't think it's so complicated. you've made this way too complex. just get out of fossil fuels. and i do support all you're doing to make sure that we have a net zero company benchmarks. thanks a lot. >> next caller, please. >> (caller): this is david paige. thank you. i have spoken before and i know

the oldtimers remember me and my message isn't really any different than in years past. i want to endorse what the previous callers have said. i'm no fan of engagement. however, if the meat packing companies have improved their worker safety because of any engagement that andrew was talking about, then that's great. and i also want to say thank you to andrew and all of you that are listening. i know you guys work hard and you do good stuff and you're trying to do the best you can. commissioner chu mentioned something really important, which is the universe of people in finance and investment isn't necessarily the same universe as the people in science and public health. in terms of divesting, as a retiree, you know, i just don't

feel morally comfortable with any part of my money going into private prisons, for example. but i appreciate how you guys have divested from tobacco and firearms. so i'm hoping that you're going to, you know, do something radically different than in years past and make a giant change in what you've been doing. here's what i'm proposing: the retirees like myself have been somewhat supportive of the idea that if you -- if it's not against the law and you can make money at it, then let's invest in that. you know, regardless of the esg. regardless of how equitable a player, a company we have to do business with. well, why don't we send out a

message like someone was talking about earlier, not in the annual report or in press releases but with the deposit advice that i get every month. a simple survey saying, you know, andrew could put together something from the report of amnesty international or human rights watch -- >> that is time. [indiscernible]. >> madam secretary, no more callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no further calls, this item is now closed. action item 9. >> i would like to make one

compliment and i didn't get my microphone on fast enough. (distortion). >> the prime minister of china, mr. xi. very similar to the aspirations document that was recommended that the board adopted or recognize a couple of months ago about this whole useful area about esg and climate improvement. just a coincidence i believe is worth noticing. thank you. (distortion). >> item number 8 action item. rea(reading item).

>> thank you, president bridges. board members, this is the first of five action numbers on esg-related matters, an update on our esg policy [indiscernible]. >> i'll keep my public comments relatively brief for this item. divested from u.s. tobacco companies since 1998, just when the companies were entering the master settlement agreement with the states' attorneys-general. we've updated the list we've recommended for divestment. in terms of what's happened over the past year, i think we've seen continuing tightening of

restrictions on electronic nicotine delivery systems or vaping products or e-cigarettes. actually sales of e-cigarettes have fallen over the year, about 14%, which is more than the decline of traditional cigarettes category. there's actually a decline in traditional cigarettes, it's much less than predicted probably due to some short-term issues like stockpiling during the covid pandemic. i think from a regulatory perspective, you know, fda -- or fda and cdc are moving forward with relabeling requirements. the e-cigarette regulations continue to be implemented and approval processes, you know, going through. one of the biggest names, j uh-ujuul -- the struggling natuf

that category. in terms of updates to our list, they're really pretty minor. they're described on page 2 of the staff memo. we're recommending adding one new e-cigarette company that's pretty lightly traded and we don't hold a position in that company and updating the name of another company and then removing three companies since they've been listed over the past year. like for all of the following members in the appendix we have a list that includes companies reflecting updates in the

nothing significant in the overall summary. >> commissioners, are there any questions for andrew on this, recommendations on this action item? if not, then i'll entertain a motion if there are no questions for andrew. [indiscernible].

>> a second? >> second. >> moved by commissioner driscoll and seconded by commissioner chu that we adopt the recommendation to [indiscernible] current policy will [indiscernible] approve a list of restricted companies as outlined in appendix [indiscernible] of the memorandum. madam secretary, public comments, please? >> please press star 3 to be added to the queue. for those already on hold, continue to wait until the system indicates [indiscernible]. are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are [indiscernible]. >> thank you.

hearing there are no calls, public comment has now closed. >> thank you, madam secretary. [indiscernible] roll call then, please. [roll call]

[indiscernible] >> if he's present, he needs to vote. >> if kevin [indiscernible].

>> next item, please. >> item number 9 action item targeted divestment in sudan, level iii of sfers esg investment policy. >> board members, this is an update on the board's policy by targeted divestment in sudan. relatively speaking, the experience for the human condition [indiscernible] continues to occur and andrew will provide further context. andrew? >> thank you, bill. we initially divested from companies operating in sudan in 2006 at the height of the

genocide in darfur. over the last, you know, 15 years or so, there's really been progress -- it's slow progress but a march towards peace and stability in the country, and that has really culminated in some changing political stances, particularly from the u.s., towards sudan. president obama and then following through president trump had loosened sanctions placed on sudan. by and large, there still remain, you know, some select sanctionsanctions and sudanese individuals on our state terrorism watchlist. but by and large the major sanctions have been lifted. last year the former president who was in power during the

genocide and there was a coup. there was a sovereignty council which includes some civilians and military leaders on the pathway towards 2022 and they will democratically elect a president. so if you recall in february, we adopted revised criteria for the way that we see and look at companies operating in sudan, where we said that given the forward progress in the country, that we're comfortable remaining invested in certain companies, those that provide things like health care equipment, telecommunication services, power equipment, other goods and services that citizens need and can actually help contribute to positive development and stabilization, in a way that would be beneficial to citizens. we continue to not invest in

companies that provide military equipment or those that were deemed to be complicit in the genocide that occurred in the darfur region. what we do with the remaining set of companies and there's, you know, a large amount of work that adrian was really central in helping with here. in our report is we screened them against their esg management practices and want to really get some comfort that the companies that we've identified that have operations in sudan are mitigating and managing their esg risks there. if we don't get comfort with that, then we may recommend them for investment restriction. the next thing we're really looking for in sudan is the removal of sudan as a designated state sponsor of terrorism by the u.s. government, and that's the big next step for the country, which is preventing

them from receiving meaningful foreign aid and foreign investment. this is something that's actually in place, not due to the darfur genocide but related to the 2000 bombing of the uss cole by al-qaeda and then bombings at u.s. embassies in kenya and tanzania by al-qaeda and that [indiscernible] by the u.s. government that sudan was complicit in those, the country did harbour osama bin laden for a period of time. so that part is actually proceeding. there's been one settlement reached for the uss cole bombing. progress has been made towards the other financial settlements. secretary of state pompeo was in sudan in august trying to negotiate those and it seems hopeful that that will move

forward. so that's the state of play. it's also worth mentioning that [indiscernible] has been brought before the international criminal court in the hague where he's facing charges of crimes against humanity and this is seen as an important step in helping to get justice for the citizens of the country so important that that is also moving forward. we recommend adding three companies to our restricted list here. one is the company petronas that was involved in directly financing militias in south sudan. it's important that there's comfort that esg controls are in place around their corporate activities and where proceeds from their energy projects are going. and then two other companies due to lack of any disclosure or

transparency, risk management didn't feel comfortable that we could get a sense of firmly not putting them on the list. [indiscernible] pages 7 to 9 of the memo and again the list proposes for adoption a list of changes are in the two appendices in that report. i'll pause there. i'm happy to answer any questions on this update. >> commissioners, any questions of andrew on trying to get divestment in sudan, level iii? action item. i'll entertain a motion. >> i move adoption of the report.

>> second? >> it's been moved by commissioner driscoll and seconded by commissioner chu that we adopt the recommendations i in the report (reading action item). madam secretary, please open up the lines for public comment. [indiscernible]. operator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. [indiscernible]. >> thank you, madam secretary.

it has been proved by commissioner driscoll and seconded by commissioner chu. roll call then, please. [roll call]

[indiscernible] >> i'm muted on my screen but i'm not the controller. now he's muted.

>> can you hear me now? [speaking simultaneously] >> can you hear me now? >> yes. >> item number 9. >> thanks, great. >> councilor casciato? >> can you hear me? can you hear me? >> yes. councilor casciato! >> yeah. can you hear me? >> we have five yeses. >> yes. councilor casciato? >> yes. >> can you hear me? >> yes, i can hear you.

yes. yes. >> five yes, sirs. the motion passes. [indiscernible]. >> item number 10, action number. targeted police vehicle investment of firearms and ammunition manufacturing companies and retailers. >> thank you, president bridges. board members, there's been a lot of activity on this item this year. there's been a spike in sales. a lot of research. two companies are added to the list. one is falling off. and there's also been a lot of

engagement efforts as summarized on page 4 of staff's memo. i'll ask andrew to walk through the item. >> thank you, bill. i want to first start and just point out an omission from the tables on page 7 and 8 of two companies that we are recommending to be added to the restricted list this year. >> [indiscernible]. >> okay. they are outlined on page 3 of staff's report and they are first cash and easy corp. and it was my oversight that they did not end up on the list in the appendices. so i want to note that. any potential motion shouldn't -- it is recommended include those two companies.

so going back to the introduction of this item, as bill said, firearms sales are up in the last year, spiked significantly, and, you know, most estimates say that guns sales are up about 100% through 2020 as compared to last year. ammunition sales are up over 100%. i think it is fuelled by a number of different things happening at the same time: the shutdown and sort of need or perception of need for self-protection, social unrest occurring with social protests and, again, a need for self-protection. and the uncertainty of the election and the outcome of the election, particularly with a biden administration that's

proposed, significant gun control regulation. so all of this has resulted in a spike of firearm sales. gun violence and mass shootings continue to occur with a lot of regularity, sadly, throughout the country. there have been almost 500 mass shootings in the u.s. to date, which has already eclipsed the number that occurred in 2019, and this is even with the shutdown for several months. you know, on a regulatory front, as i said, the biden administration is proposing pretty widespread sweeping gun control regulations. of course it remains to be seen which of those may be adopted. in particular, tightening background checks is a focus area, and then cracking down on online sales or online-facilitated transactions and actually banning those is one of the proposals, as well as

a focus on so-called [indiscernible] which are unregistered firearms or actually pieces of firearms that can legally be purchased online and then assembled that don't have an identification number or require any background check to purchase. we have productively engaged, as bill said, with some retailers over the past year. on one hand, you know, dick's sporting goods is to some degree backing away from firearms sales and their whole hunting department in their stores but they continue to implement best-in-class retail practices going above and beyond federal regulations in terms of age limits and background checks. wal-mart is also doing the same. i think, you know, sort of reading between the lines, i think their belief is that the market is sort of better if

they're players in the market and can do it responsibly rather than having transactions occur online or at retail -- or at gun shows where there's fewer regulations, no need for affirmative background checks. they did stop some of their ammunition sales when there was pushback from some of their customers around this, but it looks like they're going to stay the course in terms of their updated policies there. in terms of our recommended updates, the one that is reflected in the table there is smith & wesson brand, which has been spun out of american outdoor brands as a standalone company that will exclusively sell the firearms that are the smith & wesson brands company, american outdoor brands will no longer be involved in firearms sales but hunting equipment and firearm accessories like storage

cases, sight scopes, et cetera. they would fall off our list by criteria, smith & wesson brands and [indiscernible] will be on our list. we're recommending the addition of another trade name, armus, to reflect the same name for a company that's already on our list but more commonly referred to name to provide our managers with, and then, as i said, the addition of two pawn shop operators, easy corp. and first cash, which, you know, engage in both new firearms sales but also pawning of firearms. we've been unable to determine that they restrict the sale of firearms that are illegal for sale in california, so assault-style weapons, so therefore we are recommending that until -- or unless and until policies are put in place, clear policies and communication of those by those companies,

that we would add those to the restricted list as well. so i'll pause there. happy to answer any questions. hopefully the omissions from those tables are clear but can reiterate those again, if that's helpful. >> thanks, andrew. are there any questions of andrew? this is an action item. are there any questions for him at this time? if not, i'll initiate a motion on staff's recommendation. >> thank you. commissioner chu? >> casciato, second. >> thank you, commissioner casciato.

>> it has been moved and seconded that we adopt the recommendation for the board ... and the list of restricted companies identified in appendix b. madam secretary, please open the lines for public comment. >> thank you. callers, if you have not already done so, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. for those already on hold, please continue to wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. moderators, do we have any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is now closed. >> thank you, madam secretary. again, it's been moved by commissioner chu and seconded by commissioner casciato, roll col,

col -- roll call, please. >> pardon me, president bridges. i would like to amend the recommendation to include those two additional companies that i mentioned. i don't know if that requires that being specified in the motion. those two companies are currently not on appendix b. they're mentioned in the moment but don't appear on app deck apb in the report. >> i'll amend to include the staff's recommendation plus the two amendments that andrew articulated (distortion). >> the seconder concurs. >> thank you, commissioner chu and commissioner casciato. so we will amend the motion to include the two additional companies that staff memo does not include but was recommended by staff.

madam secretary, roll call vote, please. [roll call] >> the motion passes. five ayes. >> thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> item number 11 action item: targeted divestment of thermal coal companies: level iii of sfers esg investment policy. >> thank you. members, good news here for the most part.

coal demand has declined over the past six years and this past year is a record steady decline. coal demand is significantly [indiscernible] both in the u.s. and europe. there are five new companies being added to the list, none falling off, so there should now be a total of 46. i'm going to ask andrew to walk us through the item in detail. >> thank you, bill. so as bill said, you know, i think the trajectory of thermal coal has been on over the last several years continues to stay true in terms of demand decreasing, prices decreasing, coal demand continues to fall in the u.s. and europe, as bill said. you know, through the retirement of coal power assets. i think interestingly china's

announcement to be net carbon neutral by 2060, you know, as the largest consumer of thermal coal will be interesting to see the impact of that announcement and how that strategy plays out on the thermal coal market. too early to say specifically. no changes in terms of our recommendation here. president trump's 2016 campaign promise to revitalize the industry hasn't really been seen as widely effective and doing much more employment or coal prices in the u.s. we continue to reaffirm the recommendation that we stay divested from companies that get a majority of their revenue from thermal coal, and, you know, we last year began to return to look at companies that get a material amount of their revenue from thermal coal. so, in other words, 10 to

50 percent of revenue. and what we were looking for there was, you know, comfort -- we said that we would be comfortable recommending remaining invested in companies that have between 10 and 50 percent of revenue, but have communicated clear plans and are on a pathway to divest and sell off their thermal coal assets in the near term. those that don't or haven't communicated that, then we'd recommend for divestment. so there are a few companies and those we have been in touch with, like anglo american, south 32, contrara energy that do have clear plans or entered into agreements to sell off and fully divest their thermal coal assets. we're not recommending adding those to our restricted list. but there are a set of companies that we are recommending be restricted but that do fall within that range of revenue and

don't have any clear plans to exit the industry. so those are outlined again in appendix a and b in staff's memo. happy to answer any questions. we're going to continue to track -- you know, we want to make sure that the companies that have announced these plans to exit the industry, you know, make good on that to the degree that they can find buyers for these assets, and we'll continue to track companies like glenfor which received an immaterial amount of revenue and an extremely small amount of their ebitda from thermal coal but are on an absolute tonnage basis still produce a significant amount of thermal coal, continue to track those companies and make any follow-up recommendations in the future.

so hopefully pretty clear here but happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, andrew. commissioners -- bill, did you want to say something on this? no? >> no. (distortion). >> commissioners, are there any questions for andrew on this item? it is an action item. if not, i'll entertain a motion on staff's recommendation. >> move [indiscernible]. >> thank you, commissioner driscoll. second?

>> i'll second it. >> thank you, commissioners. it's been moved by commissioner driscoll and seconded by commissioners casciato and chu to (reading action item). madam secretary, please open the phone lines to public comment. >> thank you. callers, please press star 3 to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> there is one caller on the line. >> thank you. caller, please state your name and your two minutes begin when you start. thank you. >> (caller)caller, please statee

and your two minutes begin when you start >> (caller): okay. can you hear me? >> we can hear you. you may begin >> (caller): sorry about the confusion from bay area and fossil free san francisco. i'm really perplexed. the staff report does not seem to indicate anywhere what the fund's actual exposure in this area is and i don't believe the previous staff report has for those areas either. i would hope that would interest the board. certainly it interests the public. and i'm perplexed it's not being presented. the discussed changes you all are making to these lists are only part of the picture. without you indicating your actual holdings and preferably a before and after of how that reflects your positions, these

lists are somewhat detached from the management of the fund. so it's concerning that i can't tell from the staff report how much the fund is invested in thermal coal, notwithstanding these changes that you're making and that the board has not asked about those questions. lastly, i really urge you to move to an absolute tonnage basis with coal and not percentage of revenues. it's the coal that matters. it's the coal that particularly offends the esg policy, not the money. so as a thought experiment, what if amazon or apple went into tobacco or guns or suicide machines? ultimately the size of those companies would ensure that the percentage of revenue from these abhorrent products would be low, would be below whatever threshold you would set. it shows that revenue threshold is a absolutely artefactual metric to use when you're talking about these concerns.

ultimately if something is an esg concern, it is a quality and not a quantity. and so we have really been asking for this for four to six years, but you can move to a percentage -- excuse me, a raw amount of coal produced metric as opposed to percent revenue metric. that would be meaningful, and we urge you to make that case today, please. thank you very much. >> thank you for your call. moderator, are there any further calls? >> madam secretary, there are no more callers on the line. >> thank you. [indiscernible]. >> thank you, madam secretary. again, it was moved by commissioner driscoll and seconded by commissioner casciato and chu. roll call, please. [roll call]

>> i can't hear, darlene. i think you might be on mute. >> thank you. commissioner? >> we have five ayes. the motion passes. >> i don't think you heard my aye. (distortion).

>> just for point of clarification, i didn't hear you call my name so i didn't respond aye. but to respond, yes, i support the motion. >> [indiscernible]. >> i will call the vote again on item 11. [roll call]

>> i vote aye. there's something wrong with this computer. >> you have five ayes. the motion passes. >> thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> number 12, action item, update on strategies to address climate risk in the sfers portfolio - climate action plan. [indiscernible] -- on this

item as well as the previous five, there's a great amount of information [indiscernible]. the tenor of the item is on page 37 [indiscernible]. >> bill, sorry to interrupt you but we can barely hear you. >> can you hear me now? (distortion). >> the centrepiece of this item is on page 37, table 10, additional companies to [indiscernible]. i did want to also draw attention to -- there's just a voluminous amount of information in the report and thanks to andrew for organizing it all. there is a significant decline as far as exposure in the oil and gas industry relative t to e

public equity indices. i also wanted to draw attention to the watchlist on table 12 and also to the engagement list on [indiscernible]. andrew? >> thank you, bill. as bill said, this report sort of includes a variety of information. one is a bit of an outline of our climate action plan and steps we are taking to address climate risk in the plan and our steps towards that ambition, to be a net zero asset owner by 2050 and then of course the specific recommendations around oil and gas companies. to just give an overview of the climate action plan that we've begun to flesh out in more detail, this is essentially our road map to work towards that ambition of net zero by 2050.

the oil and gas component is one part of it, but, you know, as bill said, it's an increasingly small part of our overall exposure, when we see climate risk manifesting in many other ways as an investment risk for us in other asset classes in other industries. so our climate action plan road map and what we'll be looking forward towards 2020-2021 really does fit within the three pillars of our esg platform overall, the active ownership piece, continuing to engage with companies around climate risk, proxy voting, supporting shareholder resolutions around carbon risk management, goal setting, governance and strategy around climate risk management. continuing on this, you know, investment and divestment approach, investing in strategies that are aligned with the transition to a low carbon economy, which many of our

investment strategies are, divesting from companies and industries that we feel like have high unmitigated climate risk, like thermal coal companies and like some oil and gas companies. we'll continue on the manager and due diligence monitoring piece building on that work that we've done with our public equity managers to engage and understand how they're thinking about climate risk. and continue to apply metrics, analytics, so it's not just the carbon footprint but we're now trialing different tools that can measure alignment, corporate alignment with the paris agreement. we can understand which companies are invested within in and announce plans that are aligned with the objectives of the paris agreement to decarbonize by 2050, which ones aren't, these different scenario-based tools. so we'll be working to apply those to the portfolio over the

next year. and then, you know, where opportunities for policy advocacy arise, we certainly will do so when that's appropriate for us to do that, but certainly we will partner with other asset owners, many asset owners, in addition to governments, corporations, are working towards net zero, and we need to be part of that dialog and collaboration for us to be successful in this goal. so we will continue to build out those frameworks and those analytics, provide an update next year around that and try to set a suitable target for 2025 or 2030 in terms of our overall carbon footprint, something that is ambitious and fits with our overall ambition, but is something that is attainable and realistic. so, you know, the climate action plan really, as i said, looks at

this range of climate risks across sectors, asset classes. but we do continue to pay close attention to the fossil fuel sector, just given its contribution overall to climate change. it's been an interesting year for the sector, right, to say the least, between the oversupply and demand disruption due to the pandemic, sending oil futures negative for a period, to rebound a bit in the second half so far this year. but it's been a tough year for the sector. the industry, oil and gas, consumable fuel industry through september 30th had negative 38% return on the year versus 10% for the broader imi. i think case in point is sort of exxonmobil which has fallen out of the dow jones industrial index for the first time in i think almost 100 years, there was a period over the last

couple of days when chevron overtook exxon as the largest market cap oil company in the u.s. for the first time, exxon is no longer the biggest energy company, nextera, the largest producer of renewables, is the biggest energy company by market cap. just a lot of turmoil. we tried to prioritize some commentary in the report of different views on what may be next. in the near term, i think, assuming the reopening occurs, that production cuts have been effective, many people are calling for a rebound into 2021, 2022, potentially even, you know, depending on how production cuts, how drastic they've been for even the sort of super cycle of significant price increase over the next couple years. on the other hand, b.p. has said

peak oil demand within 2019, they in their energy outlook, two of the three scenarios they outlined had a 2019 peak of oil demand. so it remains to be seen. we continue to look at this closely. like most of our peers, we continue to have some investment in the oil and gas sector. as bill said, that's small. it'it's less than last year and it's about a quarter of what it was five years ago. so at 108 million total in the public equity and fixed income portfolio, this is a really small absolute exposure. but something we still continue to apply the transition risk framework to. we continue to engage with these companies. and i think the last year or so has been really instructive as to why engagement with oil and

gas companies is so important for the climate future and the global future. given the commitments that have been secured at companies like shell and bp, totals, rexol, many utility companies -- these are commitments by these companies i can pretty confidently made would not have been made if we had institutional investors at the table working with them on these commitments and remaining invested and these companies having an investor base that sees a future and a pathway towards decarbonization, reimagining of a business model. so i think this just really highlights the importance of maintaining a seat at the table where there are companies that are thinking about their strategy in the future.

bill already highlighted for you table 10 on page 37, which is the full list of recommended oil and gas companies that we identified using our framework and applying that, similarly as we've done in 2018 and 2019. the framework identified one additional company this year, apache, that we're recommending adding to the list of 10 current companies. we're not recommending removing any of the companies from the list. two companies did improve according to one of our metrics in the framework but we're recommending to actually see sustained improvement over time before we may think about recommending removing from the restricted list. and then there's three other companies that have actually fallen out of the universe due to either bankruptcy or being

delisted, you know, having a share price below $1. but we recommended retaining them if they issue debt or if their share price does recover. the overall universe we looked at also really shrank this year by almost 25%. it went down from 153 or so companies to 114 companies, and again, this is bankruptcies and other things so the industry is certainly shrinking our exposure, but we'll continue to apply this framework and take action with engagement, you know, based on the criteria that we outline. we're recommending a list of 11 companies for engagement activities where we have more meaningful equity, long exposure to those companies. many of those companies are ones that we are already in dialog with, are taking steps and being

responsive to shareholders around climate risk management plans, but we've added a few new companies to that list and we will continue to work on engaging with those but also opportunities to engage and support engagement with a broader list of 24 companies as they arise in the future. so i'll pause there. happy to, again, answer any questions either on the climate action plan or the list of companies. >> commissioners, are there any questions from action item -- are there any questions of andrew on either the climate action plan or the list of companies that he's recommended? if not, then i will then ask for a motion.

this is an action item. >> i just want to recognize andrew again in his involvement in this report to include the results. so thank you (distortion). >> i'll echo those thanks and i'll make a motion to adopt staff recommendations. >> thank you, commissioner casciato. >> second. >> commissioner driscoll with a second. >> yes, i do. >> madam secretary, please open the lines for public comment.

(inaudible). for those already on hold, please continue to wait. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are two callers on the line. >> thank you. caller, please state your name and you have two minutes within which to speak >> (caller): thank you very much, madam secretary. i'm from fossil free san francisco. as i said earlier i really do appreciate all the work by andrew. and in only two minutes, i have to cut the pleasantries. the staff report says things like, quote, as of june 2020, we have less than half the amount invested in publicly traded oil and gas companies than it did the year prior. unquote. it does not indicate why. that is unbelievable to me,

truly, and i've been watching you guys for six years now. so far today i've seen the fiduciaries in public make investment decisions on items 8 through 11 without considering your own positions and exposures and counting hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in item 12 without even questioning it. the value of your fossil fuel stocks by dropped by over $400 million since i started coming here. how much of that is from your manager selling assets and how much of that is loss of value to the fund based on your inactions and you're ignoring reams of data and experts brought to you. that data is not presented and it makes me suspect that they don't want to present for the beneficiaries and the city that they're talk has resulted in material losses that will not only affect the grotesquely -- excuse me, that will not affect really anyone on this board or in this room. we have done a back of the envelope that i think over

$300 million of losses have occurred from your inaction, and now that the public equity are down to just over -- >> 30 seconds. >> -- thank you. you should focus on applying the same iterative framework to your own investments that you always told us not to talk about. it shows in your natural resources and despite discourse at the time, staff has made significant investments in the energy sector, likely primarily oil and gas, and that needs to be included in everything that we heard today as well. thank you. >> thank you for your call. next caller, please state your name. you have two minutes within which to speak >> (caller): hello, commissioners. i'm jeremy pollock, speaking here as part of fossil free san francisco. i first spoke to this commission about this back in 2013.

i was a single man. i was an uninvested city employee. i'm now married. my child had his first birthday. i'm an invested city employee. my future and my son's future is in this retirement fund and it's just really depressing to look at the charts of what has happened over the last seven years of your inaction and tiny little steps on divesting from this sector that the science is clear, the economics is clear, had no future, and the risk didn't justify holding onto these stocks. you know, i just want to ask you to please shut this barn door before these last stragglers get out. i think -- i'll second everyone's compliments to mr. collins and his excellent work here. he's developed a great model for evaluating carbon risk. but i don't see any analysis of how that corresponds to performance. and i think this report doesn't

give you the information you need to make informed fiduciary decisions about these holdings. commissioner stansbury in the past has asked for these reports to include analysis how these companies -- are we losing or making money from these divestments? in your current list, i don't see how they perform -- restricted to perform. if you look at exxon and chevron, these are actually candidate to divestment companies that have not committed to carbon neutral. they have lost 12 to 15 percent over the last year. you can't identify conoco phillips that lost more than 20% that you continue to hold. the report talks about energy is the worst performing sector, 2018, 2019, 2020. >> sorry, time has passed. thank you for your comments. moderator, are there any other

callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no more callers on the line. >> thank you. hearing no calls, public comment is now closed. >> thank you, madam secretary. moved by commissioner casciato and seconded by commissioner driscoll. madam secretary, roll call, please. [roll call] thank you. five yeses. motion passes.

commissioner bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. i would like to thank andrew for his comprehensive reporting on our esg investing. it's a lot of summation, a lot of details, and i know a lot of work has gone into it from your team. so we are very appreciative. so thank you very much to the investment team for giving us all the information and data we needed to make an informed decision. thank you, andrew, to you and your team. >> thank you. >> madam secretary, next item, please. >> thank you. item number 13, discussion item. risk review for sfers total plan. >> board members, good afternoon. we do have one more large item to walk through. it's an important item. this conveys our risk exposures

across the plan. our primary active and absolute risk to our exposure in technology, health care, active management. anna and i are going to share this item. there's an extensive powerpoint presentation. there is also some in the word document. anna, if you would pull up the powerpoint presentation, we will walk through it together. >> certainly. i will just start with a few comments that this is a total plan review. this is hopefully you will have a view of the total exposures and concentration for total plan rather than one recommendation than the other. these are the largest key risks in the total portfolio. and we also examined whether we

were compensated for those risks. i also would like to start by noting that similar to esg items, this is an item that is an overview for risk management as per its. so it's an annual update on the risk management. we will talk about the overall risk management framework once i pull up the presentation, but this is the annual report. we also would like to highlight that risk management is not an exercise by just bill and myself. every member of the investment team is involved and every member of investment team has contributed to this report, and i thank everyone in the

investment team. special thanks for alo martins who put together the power point and made it much more readable. i also would like to acknowledge our partnership with multiple risk analytics providers, including (names). you will see all of the -- and (names). all of them contributed significantly to this report. so let me see if i can share the report. are you able to see? good. hopefully we can. so as i mentioned to you, the

comprehensive risk management framework has three main pillars. it's to review strategic asset allocation that is coming up next week and we've actually been working on it throughout this year, and we present annual updates. liquidity management that we covered expanse civil in the beginning of this -- expansively. there was dislocation due to covid, and measurement and monitoring of key risk drivers for the total fund. this is what we'll present in review today for the total plan and etf if we have some time. quickly we will go through risk performance overview. we will spend the bulk of today's presentation on the exposure analysis, highlighting key geography and sectors, understanding whether we were

paid for those. we will talk about two different ways to assess leverage in the total plan. and we'll also cover core exposure for each asset class. and we will conclude with [indiscernible]. there are dozens of different ways we will look at the portfolio and exercise scenarios in historical stress tests and single market factor. so let's start with the risk and performance. on slide 4, very quickly, i think what i like about this slide, less than 25 years ago we were only $5 billion. we are now over $28 billion. and as we look at the asset allocation, next week, i think we're targeting how is the plan going to -- will look like when it's a $40 billion plan and it's

the asset allocation and the business model, as bill mentioned. you will see that there's a similar view in the weights, not the capital allocation, and you will see, if we zoom in on the last five years on page 6, that over the last five years, a lot of innovation in the asset allocation, increased allocation to return, private credit and decreased -- significantly decreased allocation to public equity from 50% to actually at the end of march we were at 31. i'd like to quickly read to you the risk allocation, not just

we do plan to be compensated from taking those risks. we'd like to -- i would also like to highlight the treasuries are truly diversifying, the contribution to risk, and all other asset classes are diversifying [indiscernible] the capital allocated to it. on the bottom chart, the thick black line that says 12.2%,

that's the estimate of the total volatility, annual volatility for our portfolios based on the policy weights. and i think that's a good gauge. we will present other estimates next week from both wiltshire and an analysis, but i think it's a good gauge of where we are and it's a good way to think about the risk appetite, 12%. and as you see in the analysis later on, 12% annual -- expected annual volatility is approximately in line with a 70/30 portfolio. so a little more equities than the 60/40. here we outlined what i just said, that if you review growth assets of public and private equity, we see that 33 on the top right chart, 73% of risk

distribution comes from growth assets. similar analysis for the current asset allocation, i'd like to highlight that we do -- while we do have a bit more in public and private equity, we also have a 3% allocated to cash, to compensate for the volatility, expected volatility, and be prepared for escalation of the capital [indiscernible]. quickly here, whether diversification actually works, and you will see from this chart annual returns, that's what you're using, the annual return from each asset class, the red diamond is the total for that year. it's calendar year, not fiscal year returns. but the core thing is you will see the dark blue indicating

public equity drives the performance. as we said in expected volatility, we see that the actual realized volatility mostly came from public equity. it's also worth noting that even though we expect quite a lot of volatility for private equity, that has not been the case. we haven't seen much of the volatility or certainly not to the extent of the public equity in the last 20 years. similar results i'm going to speak to those. so the next pages examine one, three, five, ten-year and the performance and risk. and i highlighted here the annual volatility. it's interesting. even with covid and one of the largest market dislocations, one-year volatility is only 8.2%. if we compare it to what i said

of the risk appetite, 70/30, it's about -- it's almost twice that 15.2%. and we also put mean public db over one billion, it's one of the peer analysis, and they have much higher volatility as well as 12%. so that estimate that we looked at typically was an at typically was an

>> here what this indicates is that our -- these are rolling 20-year periods since -- once it goes back to 1989. and so what i'd like to point out here is that our rolling 20-year period, so long period of time, 20 years is a long time, is that our 20-year returns really for the first time in recent years have fallen below 7%. they've fallen below 7.4, which is our current required rate of return and it's been below 7.4 for the last couple of years. 20-year return right now is 6.3 or 6.4%. so quite a change. i would also like to note that in -- 20 years ago, in 1999, the

assumed rate of return per the actuary, it may have been (name), i don't recall who it was, 20 years ago the assumed rate of return for the next 20 years, from 2019, or say fiscal year 2019-2020, the assumed rate of return was 8.5% annualized. well, our actual return over that same period has been about 6.3 or 6.4. so it's [indiscernible] when you compound that difference over a 20-year period. and with that, we can turn to the next -- unless there are questions, we can turn it other to the next section, which is the exposure analysis of the plan's risk exposures. >> thank you, bill. i will start with the country exposure and highlight that the largest country concentration is

in china. we are 7.1% overweight on china, which is a large overweight, largest country overweight. we are also -- before i move on, i'd like to make sure that this overweight is calculated versus the benchmark that we use for cash overlay, which is 68% msci equity and 32% u.s. bonds. so it's -- again, it's very close to that kind of risk profile for the total fund. but we are a little underweight united states. we are substantially underweight japan. and across europe, we are underweight germany, and i don't

see -- [indiscernible] and the u.k. next, page 21 is a very important page because that's where we, both on the sector and country exposure, these exposures are intentional and we will examine whether we were compensated for this key risk drivers. here we could see we're very large overweight on the information technology. we have 23% of total plan assets are invested in i.t. so almost a quarter -- we're getting close to a quarter of plan assets being invested in technology. and that's mostly in public and private equity, but we do have sector exposures through debt as well. the next largest concentration is in real estate. again, more than half of it, 10%, comes from our direct real estate equity allocation, and the rest comes from real estate

debt, either from liquid credits through mds and cmds or absolute returns where it's mostly structures, credit, and we also have some of it in private debt. the next largest overweight is health care. it's very intentional. you will see that it is highly profiled, specifically in public and private equity but also have some of it in debt, royalties, specifically private credit [indiscernible]. the underweights are in financial and utilities and materials and industrials. so a lot of color on page 22, but i'd like to highlight, just look at the bottom of the chart and look at the evolution of our concentration in technology. five years ago, sfers invested

12% of total assets in i.t. now it's 23. so almost double over the five years. now, bill -- as bill outlined in the staff memo, the technology sector is broad and it's massive. it includes software and hardware and semiconductors and securities and data and data analysis and fintec, it's brought and growing. as you will see in the presentation next week, the -- we are big deliverers in technology and innovation, and again, this is an intentional growth and intentional growth in the overweight of the i.t. now, this slide, let me walk you through it because it's important to understand how we

approach the answer to the question were we compensated for our [indiscernible] in health care and technology. before i -- let me just flip to page 33. this is public equity sector exposure, and you can see 7.6 overweight in technology. very big overweight in technology. and health care overweight 5.2% versus the benchmark. so this was very intentional, large in i.t. and health care in our public equity portfolio. let's see if we were compensated for this type of tilt. back to page 23. page 23. so this is what's called

[indiscernible] sector performance distribution. our colleagues helped us over the time horizons. i will tell you that i have seen in my life a number of performance attributions. i've never seen positive numbers across the board. it's amazing. now, what is it that we are looking at? we are looking at cumulative active return. so this is the return over msci global benchmark. cumulatively over the years. so let's focus on five years. over the five years that i said that we increased our allocation significantly to i.t. and health care, were we compensated for that? so if you look at the bottom row, overfive years, the cumulative active return, the outperformance over the

benchmark for first public equity portfolio is 11.36%, the numbers are here in percentages. that's quite substantial. more than half of that comes from two sectors: health care and information technology. now, let's open up say health care. the active returns, or cumulative return over five years for health care is 2.43%. and it's interesting that if we were to invest just in health care index, so we were in this sector and we put all the money there, the sector outperformed msci equity. so we would have -- it would have made us 87% cumulative over five years. but the managers that we selected added to their stock

pick, through their stock, specific stock investors, another 1.65%. so that tells us that not only did we pick the right sectors to overweight, we also benefitted from active management within those sectors. we selected managers that added through stock through their stock selection acumen. similar for information technology, and that is interesting that it's consistent through all time, the forward time horizon. as i mentioned, the health care and technology overweights are mainly in public and private equity. let's see similar analysis for private equity. i apologize, the format is different because the data comes from a different system. this is thanks to our partners at askia, formerly (name).

again, let's pick five years. here session the internal rate of returns, the i, rrr over five years. -- versus cambridge's health care backbench, 14.6. so again we benefitted from selecting managers in health care. similar in information technology, our team managers -- and here this is not just the managers, this is from bottom-up investments in technology delivered 16.3% versus cambridge's benchmark of 16.1. and the last point that i'd like to make on this page, if you look on the bottom row, pe total portfolio, the irr is 14.2%, which is lower for both it and

health care. again, that tells us that the tilts toward i.t. and health care benefitted that portfolio. next we move to our geographical tilt. as we mentioned, the largest geographical tilt was in china. here we define china even broader. we'll define it as greater china, including hong kong exposures as well as taiwan and macao. so if we include greater china exposures, then 11.2% of funds, of total fund, is invested in greater china. this is a bottom-up analysis, so we do include global managers that like companies in china. or it's close to 2.9 billion of

the fund is invested in greater china. now, were we compensated for those? again, most of the china exposure, as bill covered previously, came from public equity and private equity. so here we highlight that our china managers year-to-date delivered 17.6%. by a wide margin beating any indices. so we were paid for our china tilt within public equity. now, private equity china -- now, it's very new exposure for us. it's about 5 years, i think closer to 4-year average exposure, duration on our portfolios. even then, the year-to-date irr

of china managers is 20%, well over total which is 16 and cambridge's china benchmark is 19. so we have covered three largest key exposures and concentrations within total fund: i.t., health care, and china. the last one that i'd like to highlight is the exposure to active management. i'll present two measures of active management, and as we've seen that we've benefitted from active management -- increasing active management, the measures that i'll present are looking at our public equity portfolio. so receipt now wha right now whg at is a tracking error, that's

expected volatility of active returns, returns over msci benchmark, msci equity benchmark. and we measure that volatility here using an analytics kit. five years ago that estimate was -- so the standard deviation of active returns was about 57 bips five years ago. now it is 300 bips. so more than five times. so over the last five years, we increased active risk by this measure, by the measure of [indiscernible] in our public equity portfolios by more than five times. we look at another measure of active risk. it's called active share. that is measuring how -- our

portfolios from this benchmark. or the other way you could say is, what is the overlap with the benchmark? five years ago, active share was 32%. that means that 32% of positions -- of position weights weigh different from the benchmark and 68 were the same as benchmark. so we were quite -- and 32 for a portfolio of two dozen managers is not a bad measure. but over the last five years, we increased active share of our public equity portfolio to 52%. that means that more than half of our positions are truly active and different from the benchmark. and as i mentioned in the brinson attribution on page 23, we were paid for that -- for taking that active risk.

unless there are any questions, i will move on to two measures of leverage. >> could i just make a quick couple of comments beginning on page 23? i'll just be real brief. so board members here, let's look at the five-year column. so on highlighted there, our current weight in public equity to health care is like 17%. but the weighted average over the last five years has been closer to like 13 or 14%. but look on the total column, the 2.43 as a percentage of 11.36. that means health care has been 13 or 14% of our exposure, but it's been about 22% of our excess returns. that's really, really good. in addition to that, technology on a highlighted -- its current

weight is 27. it's about doubled over that time, over the last five years. the weighted average of about five years is maybe 20 or 21, something like that. but you can see here it constitutes just under 34% of our excess returns. so even though we have a large weight to both sectors, we've outperformed by even more than those large weights, by a material amount. and then one thing i'd like to point out on page 24 is looking at the cambridge technology benchmark. the technology benchmark for cambridge includes a whole roster of venture capital managers that we don't have access to. really, any public plan doesn't have access to. and those managers are elite. i don't know exactly what their returns are, but from word of

mouth and conversations with peers that are in the e & f and family office, their returns have been really, really good. so i think if you look at this on an adjusted -- i'll ask cambridge if they might be able to put a composite of what's investable for us, is i think in technology we have outperformed by more than this line item appears. and just as anna highlighted, here we have 51% of our private equity portfolio in technology, another about 16% or something is in health care. but look how much those two sectors have outperformed the rest of our portfolio? the rest of our portfolios are in 12, are investments in technology have earned more than 16 and in health care they've earned 22. our sector weight and our decisions, manager decisions in

both sectors have added a ton of value over the benchmark and then the same would be about china which [indiscernible]. thank you, anna. back to you. >> okay, bill. now we'll cover two estimates of leverage. i really don't like saying leverage from growth and net exposures. these are really an assessment of gross and net exposures. gross exposures cover every bit of exposures. they're not volatility adjusted but they cover currency [indiscernible] and any derivatives that we have and any of the short-term positions that we have, all of it is here. and the reason we're doing it is to make sure that -- to see if we count everything, what is exactly we are putting to work

and you will see that in public equity we've increased -- so our gross exposure is 48% of the total plan while the net is 38. 49 versus 38. private equity, we have a little bit more, and i expect that comes from fx hedging on the growth exposure. real assets, not net and gross, are the same. absolute return is the largest, because that's where we have loans derivatives. by the way, these gross exposure calculations by and large do not include netting. and so when we look at it on the total fund, i think it's an interesting way to look at it and saying that the net exposure is a little higher than 100%, so 106%, and the gross exposure is less than that. so this is one way to measure risk, is how much money is put

to work in different instrument. it's not apples to apples, but it's one good measure. and then we tried to assess a different leverage of the fund in a different way, calling it an economic leverage. and here the public equity is 100% because every dollar is added invested in public equity is actually invested in a company. private equity here -- venture capital do not use that much leverage, or not at all, but the buyouts do. so most of the leverage comes from the buyout allocation. real assets, again, the natural resources we didn't assume much leverage but the real estate, which is about 60% of the fund, 60% ltd, loan to value.

absolute return, again many thanks to our partners, asset managers who tracked this diligently, polling every manager for their estimates -- not estimates but the actual leverage numbers, balance sheet leverage, so the estimate is 418, and similar, private credit is a conservative 30% leverage. leading to the total fund leverage estimate here on less than 1.5 x. next i will quickly cover the -- it's key exposures for each asset class. again, here i mention that for public equity or exposure

geographically is china, 11.4 versus 3.7. we're also overweight united states, underweight united kingdom, japan [indiscernible] germany. sector, recovered that previously. largest overweight in i.t. in health care and underweights in energy, materials, real estate, and industrials. i'm not going to cover treasuries. i joke with vicki that this is where i expect absolutely no surprises, retract treasury index to the bit. you could see that. liquid credit, however, is where we take quite a bit of credit risk, intentionally. and i'll just draw your attention to, first, the duration is lower than the benchmark. the bench is u.s. bloomberg

averages bond index. so 5.1 years for sfers liquid credit portfolio versus 6.3 years for the ags. but look at the yield to maturity. 6% expected yield to maturity for liquid credit versus 1.3 for the ag. and that comes from a strong tilt to credit quality. if you look at the average credit quality s & p equivalent is double-b plus versus double-a minus. this is only 6 notches down. so we took quite a bit of credit risk, but we feel that we are compensated for that with a 6% yield to maturity. a lot more information -- the private sector i cover quickly because there's been a detailed overview during the july

presentation by both our private equity and real assets as well as cambridge. so here i just will highlight that our private equity exposure is 51% in i.t. so more than half of our private equity exposure is in technology. and also i'll mention that we have more than a quarter in asia pacific versus 15 for the benchmark. private credit, i'd like to highlight how diversified we are in different industries on the direct lending as well as others where we find different ways of either real estate investments or other private credit opportunities. real assets, real estate, again,

very diversified. a bit of underweight in office and apartments and retail. thanks to blackstone, you could see that -- and here we're comparing to [indiscernible] index which is different. we're not able to get the data from fund to fund. we could not look through the benchmark. but here one thing that i will highlight is that we take more risk and we have larger allocation in credit strategies within our absolute return portfolio. again, this is intentional. and we have strong underweight in equities to make sure that we bring a diversified return from absolute -- from the absolute return allocation.

that concludes the exposure analysis, and i'm cognizant of time. i'll briefly just highlight the stress test and scenario analysis that we do, and iuest hundreds of stress tests on the single market factor stress test. and here we highlight core factors where we have stressed this, which is a global equityey index. and we'll go through that. from changes from last year we removed s&p stress tests and if you looked at it, we didn't feel that it added that much. but we added the dollar stress test because we felt that is something that had a large allocation and in the narcotic market. and you can -- national market. and we were plus or minus 20%

and based on this analysis we d) not expect a meaningful impact to our portfolio. opening up the msti, very strong stress test, so more than that, 40% down in world equity. you can see that the sensitivity, i call it the sensitivity analysis, if you look at the last columns that we call data, and you can see the sensitivity of that class. if you look at the top column, the top row, last column, the da -- public equity has data to msci at 1.05. that means that whether msci is down 40%, we expect the public equity portfolio to be down 42%. second column. we expect private equity to be down almost 30%, etc.

this is based on recent correlations, daily -- daily prices over the last year. so based on this analysis we expect in this year, that our portfolio will be about 25% down. or lose 6.4 billion dollars. and i'm going to -- and those historical stress tests -- here i'll just go over the new stress test, historical stress test, that we introduced with covid- covid-19. let's go to g.f.c. and the way that we define

g.f.c., the historical stress test, we don't do the correlations and we just replace the market movements over -- almost 18 months from october 8, 2007 to march 9, 2009. so the peak and the trough in market movements and we replay it. is that going to play fully and then public equity will go down 47.1%, and private equity is down 37% and real assets 34.8%, etc. so in this g.f.c. attached stress test our portfolio is expected to go down 30.5%. and lastly, let's replay the covid scenario. this is very interesting. and we just look at the 18 month span for g.f.c. and the scenario, again, taking

the peak of the market and the trough of the market, in less than six weeks starting february 12, 2020, and ending march 23,2020. so over that span, the public equities would be down 28.2%. real assets will be down 23.5%. the aggregate portfolio is expected to be down about 20%, 19.8%. again, that was not our experience because we actually have the land in public equity valuation, but this is a simultaneous shock which gives us an assessment of how to think about it, what to be prepared and also it gives us an assessment of liquidity management. however, it's not necessarily good gauge for our fiscal return. i'll stop there, and i know that bill wanted to add a couple of

comments and we are going to open up for your questions. >> just one or two quick questions and then we'll turn it over to the board for questions. one is these percentage losses that you have seen in the stress test, these are not reflective of a fiscal year loss, they are peak-to-trough. and peak-to-trough could mean something in a month, and it could mean six months, it could mean as during the bursting of the internet bubble, meaning more than two years. so i wanted to point that out that. it's peak-to-trough and not predictive of the fiscal year. often time when you have a large loss, it's followed by a very rapid recovery, very large recovery. for example, this year covid, the market was down 35% in a month and then we finished the

fiscal year up. and i think that the s&p 500 is up 9% or 10% or something for the year. so, you know, it's turning out that february 20 to march 23rd was a non-event, though it felt like a horror was opening up. i wanted to just point those one or two caveats about the stress test. with that we'll turn it over to the board for questions. i also wanted to note that this is a really long item. it's very important. it's very important for us that you know this. and we do have four or five active tilts in the portfolio -- technology, health care, china, active management, and there is a fifth, and we have highlighted it in the memo, and that is our exposure to real assets. and that consists of two segments. real estate and natural resources. real estate is arguably office

and hotels and it could be arguably more impacted by covid over an intermediate time period. and natural resources, i am of the opinion that this is the time certainly over the next decade, perhaps much sooner than that, that we will hit peak oil. for the first time oil has competition. it didn't have competition for 90 years. now it has competition from gas and now it has competition from variables. investor sentiment is important to determining asset values and it's an asset class that is out of favor. people are not willing to pay for it, even though prices are low. and, lastly, i do expect demand that this is a change for demand for oil. so it's going to take time to

work through our management resources and investments and we have uncertainty about real estate. and there's still places to make money in natural resources, and through infrastructure. we have a keen eye on renewables, we don't bring many to you, but we look at many. we're very aware that the human experience needs to change how we produce energy. and the other active tilts that we have, health care and technology and china and active management, they have all worked splendidly well in the last three to five years. those are three things that we wanted the board to take away from this presentation. next year we will make sure that e.s.g. and risks are presented in two separate months. so as to not crowd the board. with that we'll turn it over to the board.

>> thank you for your presentation. we open it up for the board comments. commissioners? >> i'll start. i have a lot of questions but because how loaded this presentation and how major it was i'm going to not ask all of the questions. but i'll have a couple though. with the total risk review and you have picked the three major ones, i'm curious, is there any other data regarding our risk to two major item it's -- interest rate and currency? >> (indiscernible) [garbled]

and we could touch upon the impacts that include those -- i believe in (indiscernible) and i believe that there are some (indiscernible). we didn't highlight them because of the impact (indiscernible) on us. >> absolutely. so commissioner driscoll, during this question we didn't have trough depth. if you look at the picture, kind of the sensitivity analysis, we show on page 45 -- we have up and down 200 basis points. these are very strong shocks. and they do result in meaningful impact, but nothing compared to equity shocks that we just discussed. so i would just draw your

attention to the interest rate shock to 200 plus and minus. this is the sensitivity to the interest rates. and then your next was the currency risk. again, we shock at 20%. so these shocks are three standard deviations of expected volatilities. again, we do not expect meaningful impact in this. hopefully that answers your questions. >> basically it does. if your estimates are correct, and it's a risk not worth hedging out. so this risk is one that we will accept and focus on the major ones. secondly, in terms of the use of word risk throughout this loaded wonderful presentation, are you mainly talking about volatility? >> it's a wonderful (indiscernible) and i'm so happy that you asked that

because risk is never meant to be one number. if you remember, even active risk, we measured it here, and represented two measures. we look at others as well, such as tracking errors and active share. for the total portfolio we'll look at different types of concentrations, right? we look at volatility. we look at stress and different types of stress. we also look at scenario analysis that we didn't have a way to look at. so the answer is, no, it's not just volatility. >> commissioner, i would like to go back to your question on currency and whether it's worth hedging. the risk -- the currency risk in terms of other risks. if we were to look at the annualized volatility of every stock, say, in the 2500, and the

volatility of the index, so just take all 2,500 stocks and take the standard deviation of a stock in any given year, and the volatility is 40% to 50%, in some years it's 100%. as it is this year. this year it's running at about 100%. the variability between the top performers and the bottom. compare that volatility to the volatility of sector returns. it averages about 10%, 12%, 13% year. countries are also about 10% or 12%. the least volatile of the four is currencies. so the place where we make the most amount of money, and the place where you have the most amount of money is in stocks. currencies would be least.

>> any other questions or comments? >> commissioner driscoll. >> the microphone is on. >> sure, thank you, commissioner. >> it says on page 3, volatility number there compared to our peers -- it shows significant and indeed four other charts, the 1, 3, 5, 10, and the 30-year plus one, and it's about volatility. and trying to draw our attention to it and that leads us into the asset allocation mix. >> absolutely. commissioner driscoll, absolutely i agree with you on that. because we'd like to highlight and we have asked and discussed

it in february and saying that the estimate for volatility is very important, specifically for where it's overestimated. and we have presented methodology to decrease the expected risk or volatilities that we use for -- and we will present next year and allocation and the liability studies from an a.t.c. >> i forget exactly which page you wrote it into, the question. it had to do with what is the board's risk tolerance or appetite for risk. it was said several different ways. we have never been individually polled for it, and no need for an individual poll, but there is a question about how much risk we should accept or plan for. it's all done on expectations and then you have great results and you're showing us. relative to our peers, i can

show you on the five charts where you made all of the comparisons and for the 1, 3, 5, 7 and long term, only the last one where our volatility was higher than our peers, but then you go back and look at the total return number. you alluded to this in one of your sentences, that you either take on more risk or -- i forget how you said it -- to change it to increase our total return. you pointed out if we need to increase 200 basis points of return we'll have to do something. my point is that the tradeoff for taking on more risk to get the return, the long-term return, that you're showing there, was it worth the 9% volatility to get the 2,042% return over that long period of time? it's difficult for us to understand and answer. >> commissioner, the answer to that question is, yes, and you can see that in the short

preparation. that is total risk, total return per unit of risk. whether the volatility was up or down. and the sharp ratio is slightly highigher than our public plannd peers and not as large a variability over the last one, three, and five years but it'sae been marginally positive. so we have been compensated for taking that additional risk.sito >> yes, we have. been the question is -- is it >> ye e efficient enough?is this is, the integral with the asset allocation and the security market line and we keet talking about more efficiency. i think we all could throw in more mixes, likes one of our mo managers i think that trades in 160 different markets pursuing the perfect most efficient portfolio. i'm not suggesting that wethe pm should do that, i'm trying togew show that if wee keep pursuingwt

fficiency, if we'reha taking o eye offff total returns, i thinr that we're going to miss something. i'm going to try to point thisot out two different ways. one, the way that it is phrased on -- i forget which page that it is -- but the statement is "staff's objective is to have s objectivists who have greater returns than our peers. it's a great objective, but i don't offense, i don't agree with that as our objective. i think our objective has to be what is the rate of return we can achieve with the amount of risk we want to accept with all of the constraints and

restraints that we have on us. >> commissioner, i think you're absolutely right. i think that's a great idea. >> so by the way, under the word summary at the top of page 9 is where that sentence is. you said today, you're looking for some direction from the board on what to do or not do. i think the long-term volatility was 8 or 8.2. >> yes. >> that was the result. okay. going back to the last assess allocation mix we adopted, after many months of study and work by you, our investment teams, and the cmac, the allocation mix we adopted, you

want to guess the mix we adopted? >> i'm going to guess 13. >> good guess. bill, we adopted 13.5. we're trying to show our stakeholders and members that we're willing to reach out to accept the best risk. i'm not trying to dismiss our peers, but what can we achieve, and then, we've got to convince the mayor's office or budget to let us have them. >> i think they're all great points. fantastic. thank you. >> that concludes my comments, commissioner bridges. >> thank you, commissioner driscoll. are there any other comments from other commissioners at

this time on staff plan recommendations? >> we're happy, and i see you next week, so maybe at that time we can try to poll the board on their risk constitution? >> i was going to ask you, is it possible, i haven't seen the total agenda, so we would roll this into that? >> i think so. i think we should. we should find a way to do that. >> okay. we can talk about it offline. you can talk with us offline about that. >> yeah. >> this was a discussion item only, so are there any questions from other commissioners about sfers and the terms to the plan? and bill, we can follow up

before next week, as well. okay. any other questions or concerns? if not, we'll open it up. this was a discussion item only, but we can open it up, the lines, to public comment. >> clerk: thank you. callers, if you haven't already done so, press star, three to be added to the queue. those of you who have already done so, please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. operator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> [inaudible] and we'll do the follow up and talk to you afterwards to see what we can do for presenting this at next

week's meeting, as well. i know you put a lot of time and effort into this, so thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioner, and thank you, board members, for hearing this item. >> madam secretary, next item, please. >> clerk: thank you. item number 14, discussion item. chief investment officer report. >> thank you. commissioners, i'll be real salient. our report lost 77 investment points. it resisted the decline last month, as it has done pretty well in every month except one.

except for march, the downside capture was that. provide equity up, you know, 12 -- private equity up 12%. it's been backed by a very strong i.p.o. market. public equity has also posted a very strong rebound, record setting rebound, actually, and is now up about 9% for the year. where we have major tilts in technology and china, they're up about 15% this year.

you heard me comment about natural resources there. i coudo have some comments the at the bottom of page 20. asia alts recommended an allocation. blue torch, which is a new relationship for us, credit strategy, the board approved $15 million last month, and it did close at 15 million. in june, the board approved an allocation of $75 million to their flagship fund as well as [inaudible] fund. good news today is we just did receive an allocation for the $50 million in the flagship

funds. [inaudible] one of our flagship investments in the life science phase, very difficult capacity here. we did request $75 million. we received $50 million. that was primarily because of our going back and forth earlier in the spring -- excuse me, yeah, early spring, march, april period -- about just where we stood with regards to liquidity concerns and our capacity, and so, you know, that may have been a fallout or

a little bit of a casualty, so less an learned for us, for me, for our staff. all of us on the board, as well, for planning, pacing schedule, and a commitment, and being able to honor that across all foreseeable forecast conditions. real quick, managers under review, please note the additions to the item. if the board would like to learn more, please contact myself, pert, or hahn. we're right about at the center

of where we thought we would be. 1.6, and median allocation was 1.95. strategy updates on page 6, this completes the cycle that you're hearing this year. he just heard the e.s.g. and risk assessment items. and finally, we have some important meetings coming up. we have an investment meeting coming up next month. i do want to take a moment to thank the board

>> you heard about orby med. it's one of our very largest relationship in the life science spaces, both private as well as health care royaltys. and matrix, performing

something around 20 or 30% so far the first eight months with our relationship with them. the board meeting, quick note, on page 7, it's not november 11. november 11 is actually a holiday, veteran's day, and so the board meeting has been moved to tuesday, november 10. last item, i am thrilled to announce the hiring of bob doe. bob is our inaugural manager of investment operations. you'll read his profile. bob brings experience. he managed investment operations for a very large investment platform and also managed investment operations on behalf of -- on state street

for calstrs, and calstrs raved about bob. bob, welcome to sfers, and you're well come to say a few words. >> obviously, i'm very excited to join this family and very excited to be a part of my first board meeting. i've been a part of management operations for the better part of 19, 20 years, both the custodial and assess management side. i'm proud to bring my experience and knowledge here. mainly, related to what -- i think kind of the three things i'll be focusing on really is what i kind of call proper location, control, and processes, so looking with the team to make sure that everything is square -- our processes belong where they

are, we have controls in place. and then, what i call is looking for places that we can have efficiencies rgs right? where we can look at our systems and auto mamation where can be better where we are, get better at data and technology and definitely want to work to identify those. and then really, just working with ourselves, our vendors, and our peers to identify industry best practices, to make sure we're really at the forefront of building out policy, programs, and practices. we're looking to be very up front in the way we invest and managing a list of the markets that we go into. and i want to shuck sure, on the investment -- make sure, on the investment opportunity side, that we do that and we don't fall under. definitely looking to really build out a team and be very cognizant about how we build it out. like myself, it is going to be

the inaugural person, but i am going to be looking to build out the team and how we move into the future. >> we have 20-some-odd investment professionals who have been waiting anxiously for your arrival. >> no pressure. >> to wrap this up, we do have two recruitments pending. we do have an analyst to support justin and an analyst to support ana. justin and ana have been here alone for six months. and special thank you to their work. they're all very important items. we look forward to seeing you next week at neex weak's meeting. science and tech and asset allocation are important items. we look forward to seeing you

next week. board members? >> members, are there any questions on the c.i.o. report? this is a discussion item only. if not, thank you, and we would like to welcome bob, as well, to sfers, and look forward to working with him. so welcome. madam secretary, at this time, if there are no questions or comments on the report, we'll open up the lines for public comment. >> clerk: thank you. callers, a reminder to press star, three to be added to the queue. operations, do we have any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no public callers, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary.

next item, please. >> clerk: item 15, discussion item. deferred compensation committee report. >> president bridges, i would suggest that you accept this report as submitted. these are for the last three deferred comp committee meetings that date back to march, august, and the most recent one in september. you were chair of that committee for one of those meetings, and commissioner casciato was chair for the other two, unless you'd like to walk-through what took place, but this is the minutes for the three different committee meetings. >> thank you, mr. peters. commissioner casciato, is that okay with you? do you have any comments or anything to add to that? do you have any comments? i have nothing to add to his comments. commissioner casciato?

commissioner casciato? hello? he's not on? he's not -- he can't hear us? >> you can hear us, but we can't hear him, so maybe we can take the report as submitted. >> we can take the report as submitted. >> he's nodding his head. >> okay. this is discussion item, and commission, we will take the

report as submitted. are there any questions from commissioners on the report as submitted? again, this is a discussion item for the deferred compensation committee report. if there is no discussion, we will take the report as submitted. madam secretary, at this time, if you could open up the lines for public comment. >> clerk: callers, a reminder to press star, three to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no further callers, public comment is now closed. president bridges?

>> thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> clerk: item number 16, discussion item. deferred compensation manager report. >> good evening, everyone. thanks for your time today. i'm here to present the deferred compensation management report. in the interest of time, i can just briefly go over some of the highlights of the attached report. attached is the sfucp deferred compensation report. i wanted to provide you with some more updated numbers as of the end of last month. so as of the end of september 2020, we've had an aggregate total of 55 coronavirus related loans issue for a little over a total of 15.1 million. we've had a total of 542

coronavirus related distributions, for a total of a little over $18 million. next, i did want to speak on a participant issue that arose recently. we were made aware of an issue that a participant had when they were setting up a withdrawal. i wanted to let you know of the situation and the steps that we have taken in response to this. in case you weren't aware, there was a participant that encountered some obstacles when trying to withdraw some money from his account. he subsequently sent a letter documenting his experience. after receiving his letter, we researched the circumstances surrounding his withdrawal request. his calls were reviewed, and we also looked over the webpages he visited and the correspondence that was sent to me.

after conducting this review, while we concluded this wasn't a systematic issue, changes could be made to prevent this from happening in the future. voya has agreed to address training with their call center reps, specifically regarding the timing of installments and when those installments would be available to the participant. they will update their website and forms, and we are planning to update our wording in our sfgp guide. as a full follow up, we also sent another letter of correspondence to his address of record last week. i'll keep you updated if

anything else arises, but i don't anticipate there should be any further issue with the situation. also wanted to mention, on the topic of communications, currently, we're in the middle of national retirement security month. this month is a national campaign held by congress to emphasize the benefits of saving for retirement. if you visited our sfgcp website this month, you probably have seen our special section dedicated to national security retirement month on the top of our webpage. if you haven't, we highly encourage you to do so. and if you do that, you'll see the links that we have to the daily webinars. additionally, on top of that, we are also holding live daily webinars throughout the month, and these presentation topics

rotate weekly. there are topics from voya on the topics of financial wellness and links to the biography fliers for our retirement counselors to encourage members to reach out and contact our reps, and the sfgcp has been sending out communications to participants at various points throughout the month. we're trying to tie in the weekly themes for the presentations and the communications. so as an example, next week, the webinar will focus on on-line access and tools available, and we will be encouraging members to register one or both of their accounts on-line. those are the topics that i wanted to cover. if you have any questions, i'm happy to answer them, and if

not, i thank you for your time. >> thank you, steve, for the record on deferred compensation. this is a discussion item only. commissioners, do you have any questions for steve at this time? if there are no questions on the deferred compensation manager's report, madam secretary, can you open the phone lines for public comment, please? >> clerk: thank you, callers. please press star, three to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no callers, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> clerk: item number 17, action item. approval to issue request for

proposals for sfdcf investment consulting services. >> members of the board, as you're aware, your board policy requires that consultants who are hired and report to the retirement board, that the services for investment consulting would go out every five years. coan has been providing consulting services for the sfdcp since june or july of 2016, so the contract would expire in june. so what we're proposing, we've presented this to the deferred comp committee at the september board meeting, and they forwarded a recommendation that we revise the attached r.f.p. to solicit bids from qualified

providers. i will note that the r.f.p. will be updated on page 9, section h. it will be updated to reflect the new language on the san francisco campaign and governmental code. that was outdated long. the key dates on this r.f.p. is if the board approves it today, we intend to issue it on friday. we intend to give them until december 14 to submit proposals, and that we would be on time to present recommendations from the evaluation team to the february deferred comp committee meeting with hopefully a recommendation from the deferred comp committee meeting and coming to the retirement board no later than april of 2021, so that if,

in fact, we time these contract negotiations, we'll have sufficient time. so with that, i'll be happy to answer any questions. >> thank you, executive director. board members, this is an action item. are there any questions for our executive director on the proposal for the r.f.p.? again, this is the request for proposals to the sfdcp investment consulting services. >> yeah, this is [inaudible] the question i asked at the committee meeting that i didn't have an answer to yet. who will be the scoring committee that will pick the finalists for the presentations in february? >> [inaudible] will be diane with justin. she will be returning from her leave right after the first of the year. steve moyes, acting director.

i will also be part of the evaluation team, and we're hoping that we can solicit the participation of someone from the public market's investment team or the investment team to help us evaluate the proposal. [please stand by]

>> clerk: we have four yeses. motion passes. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. next item, please. >> clerk: item number 18,

discussion item. presentation of sfers audited financial statement and required communications for years ended june 30, 2019 and june 30, 2018. >> commissioners, this is an item that has been continued for a number of months. it is to present the finding of the audit for 2019 -- june 30, 2019. like i said, it 's been continued since early this year. each year, the department hires a consultant to come in and do an audit. n.g.o. has done the audit the last few years, as well as

recommendations. it's strange for us because they are just finishing up the final touches of the 2020 audit, which the city, i believe, will be issuing in november, no later than december, and hopefully, craig will be back early next year to present the 2020 results to the board, but we just needed to get this presented to the board, and so i will turn it over to craig at this point. >> all right. thank you. thank you, jay, and thank you, everyone, members of the committee and the board. i'll keep this kind of brief because as jay mentioned, there wasn't really anything in the audit. we did an audit for the years ended june 30, 2019 and june 30, 2018. we issued our independent

auditor's important on june 30, 2019, and it's the highest level that an independent auditor can give a department. with the required communications, a few things that our professional standards require us to communicate to the state board of retirement. i'll go over those briefly. as i said, there wasn't anything -- we didn't have any disagreements with management during the course of the audit. management didn't look for second opinions with other accountants. we didn't have any difficulties in emergency roperforming our we didn't have any corrected statements or material misstatements, as well. couple more things that are kind of significant to the audit that we're required to communicate is that there's certain areas of the financial

statements where management has to make estimates about the balances or the numbers in disclosures, and the two most significant ones are the fair values of investment and the actuarial information which are based on actuarial estimations and actuarial statements. we found all the estimates and assumptions are key assumptions, and all the estimates and assumptions to be reasonable. and with that said, we didn't have any other audit findings, we didn't have any, you know, internal control deficiencies [inaudible] or material weaknesses in internal controls, and we also doesn't have -- note any noncompliance with laws, regulations, or contracts. so everything was in pretty

good shape, and that's kind of a testament to the finance -- the finance and the financial reporting team that sfers has with the board's oversight. >> i would join frank again in congratulating and thanking the accounting team. this is my 20th straight year where we've had what i've considered to abe aad great au. there are no material discrepancies, so i think we have a great team, and again, thank you to n.g.o. we are finalizing our latest audit, but we'll see him back early next week. >> yes. >> and with that, we're happy to take any questions the board members may have. this is not an action item, it's just a presentation of a

report to the board. >> thank you, mr. hughes, and craig, for this presentation. commission, do you have any questions for either of them [inaudible]? if not, we cthis is a discussi item. so madam secretary, you can open up the public comment lines. >> clerk: just a reminder, callers, president star, three to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the linum. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no further calls, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary,

and thank you [inaudible] for presenting these communications to the board, so thank you very much. madam secretary, next item, please. >> clerk: item number 19, auction item. approve request to adjustment industrial disability retirement allowance from 50% to 90%. >> members, this is a standard request that we asked of you. in this case, james perry was awarded a disability retirement and set at an initial allowance of 50%. his worker's compensation case was completed, and he was provided with a 90% rating. under the charter, we are

permitted to ask you to allow his increase to 90% until he's provided with a service retirement, and i'm happy to answer any questions. >> this is an action item, and i'll ask the board if there are any questions on this item. if there are no questions, i would also entertain a motion. sorry. i'm waiting for commissioner casciato. >> i want to make a motion to [inaudible] i said i make a

motion to adopt this item. >> thank you, commissioner casciato. is there a second? >> this is brian. i will second. >> thank you, commissioner stansbury. it has been moved by commissioner casciato and seconded by commissioner stansbury that we move the retirement percentage from 50% to 90% for james perry, iii. madam secretary, if you can open the phone lines. >> clerk: thank you. press star, three to enter the

queue. ma moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: hearing no callers on the line, public comment is closed. president bridges? >> yes. let's have a roll call vote on the item. [roll call]

>> clerk: thank you. we have four yeses. motion passes. >> thank you, madam secretary. please call next item, please. >> clerk: next item, number 20, discussion item, executive director's report. >> i will keep mine very short, however, i do want to point out that we've been extremely lucky since the shelter in place order. we've been able to hire two of our t members of our leadership team into permanent positions. ba do is on the reporting side, and we're more than happy that bill and his team have adopted him and have assured us that

they will be always available to help him be successful in his job. a second key hire that we have brought on board last month and a project that i've been working on for 15 years, and that is to get a quality assurance operational risk office started in the department, and i have been working with mr. derwin brown for nearly two years, i think over two years, frankly. tried to convince him that he needed to leave the l.a. county plan and come up and join us in san francisco. he agreed to do that. he started work at the end of last month. he has over 20 years of experience working with lucera. 15 years of that were working towards building -- they started 15 years ago -- was

spent working towards a quality assurance program at lucera. i believe the last five years of his job at lucera, he was the chief of the quality control department there. just wanted to let ba and bill know, this wasn't an extremely long meeting -- no, i'm kidding. this was an extremely long meeting. i will offer derwin an opportunity to speak to the board, hopefully, he's still here. >> thank you, jay. hello and good evening, president, and fellow commissioners. as jay mentioned, i have 20

years in los angeles county. in 200 1, our c.e.o. split the retirement operations into three separate divisions, which was member services, benefits, and quality assurance. the manager who hired me went to quality assurance, and i went with him. and he started building the actual quality assurance in 2001 and 2002 from the ground. we started with procedures, documenting procedures for our business processes, developing criteria, adding measurements, doing analysis, doing regular audits. from then, i moved up to supervisor within quality assurance, where i was

fortunate enough to be the project manager for several data cleanup project that [inaudible] on our radar to take care of because one of the things that we had -- and i'm sorry if i'm taking up too much time -- but we had a data conversion program that i was involved in. i'm very happy to be here with you guys, improving the processes, contributing as much as i can, and being a part of this great team. it has been a pretty short meeting, and my patience is still here, so i appreciate the time of day, and thank you, karen, and thank you, all. pleasure to be here. >> thank you. the other thing i would like to point out that's not on the agenda is we had presented to

you [inaudible] the board has declared a vacancy, and commissioner driscoll's appointment will be ending in february. so back in june, we sent a proposed schedule. you adopted it, and you declared a vacancy. we've worked with the department of elections -- i should say darlene worked with the department of elections. they have agreed to reschedule. just wanted you to know that we will be sending out notice of that vacancy tomorrow, and that we are going to have the period for nominations start on october 19 through, i believe, september 14, which is september -- december 14, which is a friday. we will vote in january, and

just wanted to give the board the heads up that we will be opening up the nomination period effective monday, october 19, and we'll be sending notices out to labor organizations, to the city, the department heads, and to employees and retired employees. with that, i'll be happy to answer any questions that any board member has. >> thank you, executive director huish, for your report. we'd like to welcome you to the family. and yes, this is a long meeting, but we ask you for your patience as we go through this report. commissioners, are there any questions for the director?

if not, madam secretary, we'll open up the publhone lines for public comment on the director's report. >> clerk: thank you, madam president. members of the public, press star, three to be entered into the queue. moderator, are there any public callers on the line? >> madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you, moderator. seeing no further callers, public comment is closed.

president bridges? >> thank you, madam secretary. >> this is [inaudible]. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> >> commissioners, at this time, we have the floor open if you have any comments, suggestions, or anything you'd like to state for the good of the order, you can do that now. so it is open for any suggestions. >> commissioner driscoll again. to my fellow colleagues on the governance committee, i'll be asking darlene [inaudible] help in terms of getting out guidance to the governance committee in the next several weeks. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner

driscoll. anyone else? if not, we'll open the phone lines for general public comment. >> clerk: thank you. any callers on the line, please press star, three to be added to the queue. moderator, are there any callers on the line? >> operator: madam secretary, there are no callers on the line. >> clerk: thank you. hearing no further calls, public comment is now closed. president bridges? >> madam secretary, i think that was our last item, and that's the end of the meeting, so the meeting is adjourned at 7:15 p.m. thank you everyone for your patience. thank you very much, and have a wonderful evening.