ATRS trustees learn that the system's investments rise to $10.9 billion

Mike Wickline provides coverage of Thursday's meeting of the trustees of the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System. In addition to learning that the value of the pension system's assets has risen by $270 million, trustees also learned that roughly $20 million of the system's assets is invested in companies doing business in Sudan.

The Legislature passed a non-binding resolution (SCR20) earlier this year encouraging the state’s retirement systems to divest any investment in companies operating in Sudan due to the recent humanitarian crisis in Darfur. System executive director Paul V. Doane questioned whether the system wanted to get in the habit of assuming that the Legislature can tell it what to do with the money since it belongs to system members and not the legislative branch.

Doane replaced David Malone as E.D. earlier this month and comes to Arkansas from New York, where he worked for one of the system's money managers. Doane is a former member of the Massachusetts Senate (1981-89).