California Controller Seeks Immediate Calpers Meeting on CIO

(Bloomberg) -- The California state controller is stepping up pressure to get answers from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System about the abrupt resignation of investment chief Ben Meng.

In a letter to Calpers’ Board President Henry Jones on Monday, Yee called for a meeting to be held within 48 hours of receipt of her request. Last week, she called for an emergency meeting before the board announced it will have a session on Aug. 17.

“I believe the board has an obligation to Calpers members to determine whether Mr. Meng’s carelessness violated any laws or caused financial and reputational damage to the pension system,” Yee wrote in her request for “immediate board action.”

Jones rejected the request later Monday, telling Yee in a letter that legally he could only call a special meeting without the standard required notice “when certain, specific, circumstances exist and waiting 10 days would impose a substantial hardship or impair the public interest. Since counsel advises me that none of those qualifying circumstances exist, we cannot legally notice a meeting under that provision.”

Meng abruptly resigned as chief investment officer of the $400 billion pension fund amid questions about whether he breached conflict-of-interest rules by putting some of the fund’s money into investments that could have benefited him personally and failing to disclose that to the board.

Meng said he resigned to focus on his health and his family. Any issues regarding financial disclosures were properly handled, he said.

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