Fisher Investments says its contract’s termination date is Oct. 13.
In its Sept. 13 letter to the Retirement Fund, Fisher Investments vice chairman Jeff Silk stated, “Pursuant to Section 4.7 of the Investment Management Agreement dated as of November 29, 2007 between Fisher Investments and Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund, we hereby provide 30 days advance notice to terminate the IMA.”
As of Tuesday, the Fund had already lost its investment consultant Wilshire Associates Inc., actuary Buck Consultants, money managers Stralem & Company, BlackRock, and Fisher Investments.
Last week, during the Fund’s emergency board meeting, money managers hinted at the termination of their contracts owing to the enactment of Public Law 17-51.
BlackRock, a key money manager, had a self-terminating provision in its contract: when the law was signed, it automatically dissolved the contract.
Stralem & Co. also invoked the 30-day notice provision of its contract with the Fund.
In a span of a week, the Fund has been left in shambles by the very law that promised to protect the troubled pension agency from harm.
Without Wilshire and the money managers, the Fund’s investment strategy will not work. It can’t invest its money in the market as mandated by P.L. 6-17.
Fund Administrator Richard Villagomez also noted that Buck Consultants performed the role of auditing the health of the pension fund.
Buck Consultants’ contract allows it to stop working in the face of an adverse event. The enactment of P.L. 17-51, in Buck’s view, is an adverse event similar to war and terrorism.
In its letter to the Fund on Sept. 12, Buck Consultants stated, “If the law is not repealed, one of our options is to draw our work to a close.”
According to Villagomez, “Many years of deficient employer contributions put the Fund in the emergency room; P.L. 17-51 chased away the physicians.”
