A new report from the New York Times highlights that Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate David McCormick’s hedge fund “delivered middling profits” while charging “more than $500 million in fees,” as a manager of “billions of dollars for the retirement plans of [Pennsylvania’s] teachers.”
New York Times: McCormick Faces Scrutiny Over Hedge Fund’s Handling of Teacher Pensions
By Trip Gabriel, 3/16/22
- “Before he entered Pennsylvania’s Senate race, David McCormick oversaw a giant hedge fund that invested billions of dollars for the retirement plans of the state’s teachers.”
- “But Mr. McCormick’s company, Bridgewater Associates, delivered such middling profits and charged such high fees that the Pennsylvania teachers’ retirement fund moved to sell off its Bridgewater holdings beginning two years ago.”
- “Overall, Bridgewater’s performance was a contributing factor in nearly a decade of poor returns for the retirement fund, trustees of the fund said in interviews.”
- “The impact is now being felt indirectly by thousands of teachers who have to pay more from their paychecks to fund their retirements, an extra $300 annually in some cases.”
In a sign that this vulnerability isn’t going away anytime soon, McCormick’s primary opponent Mehmet Oz yesterday held a press conference highlighting that McCormick’s hedge fund reaped massive profits while failing Pennsylvania taxpayers, teachers, and retirees.
According to the Times, “McCormick’s campaign said that he had not directly been involved in overseeing Bridgewater Associates’ relationship with the Pennsylvania teachers’ retirement fund or overseeing the fund’s investments.”
But by David McCormick’s own admission, he bears personal responsibility for the way that his hedge fund failed to deliver for Pennsylvania retirees while extracting hundreds of millions in fees.
As McCormick put it, while talking about his business record during a February 23 meet and greet event in West Chester, “[A]nything a company does, if there’s a CEO, the CEO’s responsible for, right?”
Published: Mar 16, 2022 | Last Modified: Mar 22, 2022