The Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System (LACERS) remains indecisive about how best to proceed with its 14% allocation to private equity, with one member of the investment committee suggesting looking for a wider pool of consultants before proceeding with interviews of the three finalists identified after a recent search.

The $17bn fund’s private equity program has been unsettled since July of 2017, when the board blew up an ongoing RFP process and started from scratch. At that time, a board member accused the incumbent consultant – and investment staff’s preferred option for a new contract – of fudging the performance numbers for private equity programs managed on behalf of other pension funds. Other pension fund clients stepped to the consultant’s defense, and the consultant explained its methodology in a later meeting, but the bad blood caused by the incident caused the consultant, Portfolio Advisors, to withdraw from consideration during a rebooted RFP process. Now, LACERS is once again on the verge of making a selection during the rebooted consultant search, and once again, some board members seem dissatisfied with the process.

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Published by Money Management Report/Pageant Media.