Treasury’s Love Affair with Private Investments Doesn't Add Up

August 25, 2025

Treasury’s Love Affair with Private Investments Doesn’t Add Up

Two recent, major investigations by The Oregonian and the Oregon Journalism Project in Willamette Week and statewide local newspapers, recently detailed significant problems with the Oregon State Treasury’s private equity overexposure for PERS.

Following these publications, Divest Oregon has received questions about the information and risks of this exposure, which our coalition has tracked with concern for years. In this memo, we provide answers.

By standard financial yardsticks, Treasury’s private equity investments in the past 13 years routinely underperformed the benchmark long established by the Oregon Investment Council (OIC). They regularly underperformed the broad US stock market. They have not provided exceptional returns. Simply put, Treasury’s love affair with private equity no longer adds up.

OPERF’s 10-year rolling average private equity returns are substantially below OIC’s benchmark

OIC Investment Policy 1203 (at p.11) says that OPERF's private equity allocation is managed to produce net excess returns “over very long time horizons, typically rolling, consecutive 10-year periods” (emphasis added).

Below are the 1, 3, 5 and 10-year third-quarter private equity rolling returns Treasury presented to the OIC at its 1-22-2025 meeting, at p.59. All OPERF 1, 3, 5 and 10-year rolling returns are below OIC’s benchmark (Russell 3000 stock index + 3%) by substantial amounts, though Treasury's website at p.9 says 1-year stated returns are not meaningful.

Here is the same data for the previous year, 2023, at p.35. The amount compared to benchmark is slightly positive over 3 and 5 rolling years, and substantially negative over 10 rolling years.

In 2022, the year before that (at p.16), the 3 and 5-year returns are substantially positive, but the 10-year rolling return is substantially negative.

In 2021, the year before that (at p.29), the 5 and 10-year returns are substantially negative.

Note the “IRR” designation of returns above, which means the estimates are of an “Internal Rate of Return.” This is the common method for stating Treasury’s private equity returns. However Treasury's website at p.9 warns: “Due to a number of factors . . . the IRR information in this report DOES NOT accurately reflect the current or expected future returns of the partnership. The IRRs SHOULD NOT be used to assess the investment success of a partnership or to compare returns across partnerships.” (emphasis added).

This points to real problems with how OPERF values its private equity investments. If you are confused about why Treasury would state values in one place that it calls unreliable in another . . . so are we.

Two-thirds of OPERF private equity’s 9 most recent consecutive 5-year rolling averages failed to meet benchmark

In addition to the performance failures documented in the last four consecutive 10-year rolling averages, we were able to calculate the results of the 9 most recent consecutive 5-year rolling averages from data that OIC consultant Meketa presented to the OIC.

The data is annual year-end comparisons of OPERF’s private equity returns with its Russell 3000 index + 3% benchmark, for years 2012 through 2024, here (p.77) and here (p.84). Meketa presented the data in OIC meeting materials and Treasury can not disavow them. (Calculation results show some differences with the 1, 3 and 10-year rolling returns presented above. That is because those returns are based on third quarter numbers, not year end numbers.)

The Meketa-presented data allows the calculation of the most recent 9 consecutive rolling 5-year averages: 2012-2016, 2013-2017, 2014-2018, 2015-2019, 2016-2020, 2017-2021, 2018-2022, 2019-2023, and 2020-2024. The Meketa numbers show OPERF’s private equity returns failed to meet benchmark in 6 of the 9 rolling 5-year averages. In 5 of those 9 averages, private equity even failed to meet the return of the Russell 3000 index—not the 3 percentage points higher which is the standard.

This means OPERF’s private equity performed worse than a broad US stock market index during more than half the rolling averages examined. That is not high performance as has been so often touted by Treasury management and staff.

On average over the entire past 13 years, private equity failed to even meet the Russell 3000 index

Tellingly, OPERF’s private equity on average over the entire 13-year period failed to meet benchmark (Russell 3000+3 percentage points) and even failed to meet the Russell 3000 index. According to Meketa’s numbers, OPERF’s private equity average return over 13 years was 13.29%; the Russell 3000 average was 16.37% and the 3% higher benchmark average was 19.37%.

This means OPERF’s private equity performed worse than a standard stock market index over the entirety of the past 13 years, and underperformed its benchmark by a whopping 31%. Over the past 13 years OPERF would have earned 40% more on the money it put into private equity (3.08% annually x 13 years; 47% with compounding) if Treasury had put its PERS beneficiaries’ money into the standard stock index fund OIC chose as a base for comparison. Instead, staff disregarded policy and continuously steered OPERF into increasing amounts of private equity—with all its overt and covert fees and costs, secrecy, complexity, illiquidity, and economically undesirable and even destructive side effects.

This is a spreadsheet of our benchmark calculations.

For the past 7 years, Treasury staff disregarded its OIC-mandated investment range for private equity

In OIC meetings, Treasury has contended that everything is proper because even though it continues to substantially exceed its target for private equity investments, private equity’s 26.5% share of OPERF is within OIC’s approved “range” of 17.5%-27.5% of OPERF’s portfolio.

Treasury omits saying that ranges are established in order to “balance the desirability of achieving precise target allocations with the various and often material transactions costs associated with . . . rebalancing activities.” (OPERF Investment Policy Statement p.12.)

But there are no transaction costs to slowing the growth of private equity in the portfolio by buying less of it. Transaction costs occur only from sales of existing holdings in the secondary market. And Treasury staff has been pushing the upper range for ever-expanding private equity investments from 2015 until recent slowed commitments and the $4.5 billion in value- depressing secondary sales reported by The Oregonian.

OPERF monthly returns and asset allocations, available on Oregon Treasury’s website, show that in 2018 the OIC-approved range for private equity in OPERF was 13.5% to 21.5%—the target of 17.5%, plus or minus 4%. They further show that staff exceeded that range in the fourth quarter of 2018 when OPERF had 22.1% of its portfolio in private equity.

For the next 3 years, in every quarter but one, Treasury management allowed staff to exceed its OIC-approved private equity range. By the third quarter of 2021, OPERF was almost 9 percentage points above its target and 5 percentage points above its upper range.

There were no real brakes on this growth. In the fourth quarter of 2021 OPERF’s private equity came within the upper range–but only because the OIC increased the upper range from 21.5% to 27.5%. And the new private equity range, unique among OPERF asset classes at the time, was itself imbalanced. Rather than plus or minus the same number around the target, the OIC skewed the range to be 7.5 percentage points above the increased 20% target, and 5 percentage points below it. The accommodation to staff’s profligacy is obvious.

Treasury remained resistant to lowering allocations even as the problem of misallocation loomed.

At a November 2022 OIC meeting, Treasury management sought to solve the misallocation problem by again raising the private equity target, from 20% to 22%. After Chair Samples expressed her disapproval, management said (at 58:45) “I could tell you candidly whether it's 20 or 22 it makes no difference to us. We’re still going to be executing the same plan.” At the OIC’s January 2023 meeting, management described (at 1:26:30) OIC’s private equity policy target as “artificial”: “I don’t think we as an organization are in a rush to get down to 20 percent. We hope to get there in time, but understanding what you’re saying, your question, we don’t want to lose the long term value of what we're doing in order to get to some 20% artificial number.”

From October 2018 through September 2021, Treasury management allowed private equity to exceed the upper range of OIC approval in 11 of 12 quarters. After the OIC then increased the upper range, Treasury management and staff still exceeded it in 7 of 15 quarters. And if the OIC in 2021 had approved a range of plus or minus 5 percentage points from target—the balanced practice it usually followed—then OPERF private equity would have been beyond the upper range in all quarters but one for the past seven years—from October 2018 until today.

Management and staff should have taken OIC policy seriously. The signals to start a responsible path to target were readily apparent in 2015. Instead, Treasury waited eight more years for the bottom to fall out of OPERF’s excessive private equity investments in 2023.

While no one can always predict the behavior of future investment markets, anyone can predict that damage to pensions should be expected when pension investment policy is disregarded for years. Had Treasury simply followed policy, rather than disregarding it, OPERF would not have incurred the $1.4 billion investment loss calculated by the Oregon Journalism Project and published in Willamette Week.

This table shows Treasury management’s and staff’s disregard of private equity’s upper ranges from 2018-2025.

Treasury management defends its serial policy violations as good for OPERF. They’re not.

The Oregonian quoted Treasury’s chief investment officer as saying that longstanding OIC policy expecting 3% above-market performance from high-risk private equity returns “may not be the best measure.” He contended that over the last 20 years, OPERF’s private equity outperformed the stock market by 2 percentage points and he suspected the OIC would be happy with that—even though that is a 33% reduction in OIC’s policy—expected market outperformance for private equity.

These comments do not inspire confidence that Treasury management is facing reality. The facts speak for themselves: Seven years of serial policy violations by investment staff that resulted in today’s $1.4 billion loss, and a private equity 13-year average that performed worse than the broad US stock market—making Treasury's high-fee, high-risk, illiquid bets costly losers, not index-beating winners.

OPERF’s heavy reliance on private investments raises important policy questions:

Should a responsible public pension fund invest a quarter of its assets into a class that generates almost half of all financial risk to the portfolio? That is the risk Treasury reports to the OIC (March 2025, p.102), as seen in OST’s presentation chart at below right.

Should a responsible public pension fund invest almost 60% of its assets in opaque private investments with no public oversight? OPERF is out on a limb in this regard. Public Plans Data, an independent academic and professional consortium, reports that in 2024, state and local pensions averaged about half the amount of private equity (13.7%) as OPERF has, as well as about half the amount of overall private investments (30-33%). And a 2024 survey of 50 top pension executives found that most thought a 20-40% allocation to private assets was reasonable—while none thought more than 50% was reasonable.

Treasury’s disregard of OIC allocation policy is not limited to private equity.

Treasury’s Real Assets class, another set of secretive private investments, comprises 10.5% of OPERF, even though its target is 7.5% and its approved upper range is 10%. That puts it 40% over target, and over its top permissible range. Staff tells the OIC (at p.68) it does not expect to bring the allocation to target until 2032—7 years from now. And as seen from Treasury’s Risk Contribution chart above right, Real Assets is also an outsized risk contributor—with 10.5% of OPERF assets, it generates 16% of portfolio financial risk.

At least as importantly, much of PERS emissions intensity comes from the Real Assets class. That must be addressed immediately. As shown above from Treasury’s April 2025 presentation to the OIC (at p.54), about one third of these assets are in sectors funding fossil fuel extraction, infrastructure, and power generation.

These OPERF investments create and cement decades-long greenhouse gas emissions. They will inevitably increase global warming that economists now identify (at pp.15-20) as posing increasingly substantial risks to GDP and investment values.

As shown below, Treasury’s consultant Ortec (in its 2021 Climate Scan Report at p.8) forecast a 37% reduction in OPERF values by 2060 under a failed transition—the path for which OPERF is currently investing. OST’s climate investment choices, along with other public pension funds, matter considerably to their own future returns and to future retirees.

Treasury staff nevertheless ignores this substantial climate risk, and claims a history of Real Asset returns 1-2% over benchmark, presenting (at p.66) to the OIC this April an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 7.6% from inception of

the asset class to date. However, Treasury’s website says “IRRs SHOULD NOT be used to assess the investment success of a partnership or to compare returns across partnerships.” More accurate information on Treasury’s website shows Real Asset returns to be 4.8% from inception to date on a time-weighted basis. This 4.8% is almost 2% below benchmark.

Conclusion: An unremedied problem in Treasury’s investment culture will continue to cost PERS billions. It will also sink the Net Zero Plan for OPERF.

Treasury’s own numbers belie the contention that private equity is a high-performing asset that is worth its high risk, complexity, secrecy and illiquidity. In the past, perhaps yes, but the past is over. Experts agree that high interest rates and too much money dedicated to too many marketers from firms chasing too few deals have drastically changed the attractiveness of private equity. Simply put, Treasury management is driving private equity investment by looking in the rearview mirror.

But the problem at Treasury is more than bureaucratic inertia. Years of ingrained conduct by Treasury management and staff show they have resisted and even flouted OIC investment policy when they want. Recent news investigations pulled the curtain on a troubling and problematic investment culture in need of serious reform.

Without reform to overcome active staff resistance to policy, PERS will not just continue to leave billions on the table. The future of the Treasurer’s Net Zero Plan, and the climate-protecting investment changes that must come from it, are in grave doubt. Prominently hanging in the balance is an end to new private investments in decades of climate-damaging fossil fuel projects and infrastructure. This was a promise made by the previous Treasurer in the Net Zero Plan, and made by the current Treasurer on the campaign trail.

It is time for those promises to show themselves in action–beginning with a complete and public examination of how and why Treasury management and staff spent the better part of the past 10 years disregarding OIC policy on private equity investing.

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Questions for Treasury and OIC about Private Investments

August 19, 2025

Open Letter to Treasurer Steiner and members of the OIC: Recent reporting in The Oregonian , Willamette Week and OPB’s Think Out Loud have highlighted concerns about OPERF’s investments in private equity, including acknowledgement by Treasury that OPERF’s 20-year average return for that asset class is 33% below its market outperformance benchmark. According to those reports, this has resulted in significant investment losses that would not have occurred had OST balanced its portfolio following allocation targets set by the OIC. These losses have subsequently increased the tax burden of public employers, such as schools —schools that have now had to lay off teachers. This has meant that the $500 million increased school funding approved by the legislature in 2025 must be used to pay for increased PERS contributions, rather than being used to improve student outcomes as illustrated below. On the heels of these reports in the local media, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Association of University Professors, and Americans for Financial Reform released a report, From Public Pensions to Private Fortunes: How Working People’s Retirements Line Billionaire Pockets (July 30, 2025). The report summarizes in a solid, documented, and readable manner the many studies showing how private equity and related forms of private investment no longer deliver superior returns, particularly on a risk-adjusted basis, along with concerns about workforce management practices. The response from OST has been less than informative, with simple references to the need to invest “on a 40 year horizon,” which does not answer the critiques from investment experts quoted in the articles or noted in the above articles and report. It is time for OST leaders to explain to beneficiaries and the public in detail the rationale behind their unusual strategy, including: ● Given the uncertainties of our current economic situation, why do they think private investments will outperform others? ● What data are they using to support this view? ● What guidance are they being given, by whom, to follow this path? ● Given their reference to positive private investment performance in the past, aren't they simply “driving with the rear-view mirror?” It would appear from recent news reports that OST is taking undue risks with beneficiaries' pensions. It is time for OST to answer the criticisms raised. For your reference, we have attached a more detailed letter regarding the major issues raised and a list of questions posed by these news articles and reports. We look forward to your response. Sincerely, AAUP-Oregon AFT-Oregon Senator Jeff Golden Senator Khanh Pham Senator James Manning Representative Farrah Chaichi Representative Lisa Fragala Representative Mark Gamba Divest Oregon Coalition Attached below: Illustration of losses to Oregon school from the Willamette Week article.

Oregon's PERS headquarters in Tigard, in 2018.LC- Mark Grves

Private Investments in Oregon PERS in the News

August 12, 2025

“How the Managers of Oregon’s $100 Billion Pension Fund Ignored Expert Guidance and Lost Big” James Neff, Willamette Week August 5, 2025 ( link to article ) “Oregon’s pension fund bet big on private equity. That could be a problem” Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian , July 21, 2025 ( link to PDF ) Two recent articles published in The Oregonian and Willamette Week investigate the issue of the Oregon Treasury’s reliance on private investments in Oregon Public Employee Retirement Fund (OPERF). The Treasury’s over-dependence on these funds (often called “private equity”) led Divest Oregon to put forth the Pause Act in the Oregon legislature’s 2025 session. Although the Pause Act was not enacted into law, it raised questions around the Treasury’s overuse of private investments, that they: are heavily invested in the fossil fuel sector are secretive - with minimal oversight, charge high fees are more likely to oppose unionization efforts and are ten times more likely to go bankrupt than their peers not controlled by private equity, and, as the two recent articles demonstrate, they are not delivering for Oregonians. As Ted Sickinger explains in The Oregonian : "For decades, Oregon’s public pension system has been kept afloat by a gusher of income from its investments in private equity, opaque private partnerships that typically buy companies, manage them, then try to sell them at some point for big profits.The returns have played a meaningful role in maintaining the system’s financial health, routinely outpacing other investments and keeping a funding deficit caused by misguided benefit decisions decades ago from becoming even larger than the nearly $30 billion shortfall today. Yet in the past several years, even as the stock market has been booming, that private equity gusher has slowed to a relative trickle. That’s undermining the system’s total investment returns, causing cash flow issues and, as of July, contributing to another rise in the punishing contribution rates that government employers are required to make to the fund." James Neff, in Willamette Week , estimates that OPERF “lost out on” $1.4 billion in 2024 in its rate of return by relying on private investment.

Oregon Treasury's "Climate Resilience Investment Act" (HB 2081A) Passes

June 16, 2025

Oregon Treasury's "Net Zero" Bill, HB 2081 , passed both chambers of the Oregon Legislature on June 16, 2025. This legislation directs the Oregon State Treasury (OST) and the Oregon Investment Council (OIC) to manage and report on climate-related financial risks to the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS). Introduced by State Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner, the bill intends to align PERS' investment strategies with the state’s climate goals while upholding fiduciary duties. HB 2801 is a step in the right direction for low-emission investments in the Oregon State Treasury, but it is only a first step toward addressing climate risk. Significant limitations must be addressed through Treasury policy or future legislation. Specifically:

Divest Oregon conversation with Coast Range Radio: Why is Oregon’s Treasury Addicted to Fossil Fuels?

June 13, 2025

“The statewide coalition Divest Oregon has been calling out the Treasury’s dirty investments for several years now, and they have also put out policy proposals, research, and legisl ation to shift our investments to help foster a clean energy economy.” — M Gaskill, Oregon Coast Radio Specifically, the conversation covers: The Pause Act (SB 681) which focused on new private fund investments in fossil fuel infrastructure like pipelines and LNG export terminals The Treasurer’s legislation ( HB 2081A ) on some movement toward net zero, a just transition, and reporting to the legislature and public The Climate Risk Report on the need for a paradigm shift in the Treasury’s thinking as to the financial impact of the climate, especially on public employees now in their 20’s, and the need to act together with other pension funds to direct the 11 trillion they manage toward mitigating future climate impact The addition of a fossil fuel free fund as an investment choice under the 529 College Education Plan - sign the Green529.org petition Divest Oregon’s inside/outside strategy This half-hour conversation is a terrific snapshot of Divest Oregon’s work. Find it on almost any podcast app - here are a couple: Spotify Apple Podcasts

Divest Oregon’s New Report on Climate Risk to Oregon Public Employees’ Retirement

May 27, 2025

Pension fund managers are confronting a tumultuous financial landscape. What is creating uncertainty? Inflation, tariffs, artificial intelligence, the energy transition, an oversupply of liquid natural gas, the rise of private equity and private credit… and the unique risk of climate change, which is the mother of all risks. Why is climate change an overriding risk to financial portfolios? Divest Oregon’s Rick Pope explains why in the Divest Oregon 2025 Climate Risk Review: No Place to Hide , a deep dive into current climate, economic and investment research. It stresses a core theme: The portfolio of retirement funds cannot be diversified to offset the risk of unabated climate change. There is nowhere for fund managers to hide from the fact that the entire portfolio of investments will be affected by climate catastrophe. Why is this important? Public pension funds in the US control nearly $11 trillion in assets of nearly 36 million state and local beneficiaries who depend on their funds to support their retirement. How fund managers invest the funds in their care can influence the market and influence public policy. Praise for the report from Treasurers, academics, and climate activists provides insight into the report’s impact. As the report documents, acting now to offset climate change will cost far less and harm asset values far less than accelerating climate change. Acting together, fiduciaries can move the market by investing in climate solutions, rather than financing climate destruction. How does the Climate Risk Report fit into the rest of Divest Oregon’s current work to pressure the Treasury to stop investing in fossil fuels? Divest Oregon submitted testimony in support of the current Treasurer's bill to reduce emission-creating investments in the portfolio. Oregon’s Treasurer is the first in the country to put forward a legislative mandate to consider climate risk and just transition in its investment decisions as it moves toward a low-carbon economy ( HB 2081 ). The Treasurer’s proposed legislation ( HB 2081 ) requires a just transition to clean investments. Divest Oregon and allies are working to articulate steps to implementation of this provision by the Treasury. The legislation has a reporting requirement. Transparency is an issue since approximately half of the PERS retirement fund has been invested in private investments, generally called private equity, which are currently secret. Reporting is a key tool in measuring progress toward reducing climate risk to the portfolio – and to all of us. A major part of our ongoing work is to pressure the Treasury to create a comprehensive and rigorous plan to stop the portfolio from contributing to climate degradation. Divest Oregon has a new campaign to encourage the Treasury to add a fossil fuel free option to the Oregon 529 Funds . The release of the 2025 Climate Risk Review clearly and unequivocally puts the Oregon Investment Council and the Treasury on notice that they must act to protect PERS assets from the risk of depressed values from climate change. As fiduciaries who must protect the financial well-being of their beneficiaries, their mandate is to assess risk – and climate change is an overriding risk – and factor it into their investment and resource allocation decisions. Confronting the impact of climate is the essence of their job.

What is the Pause Act Win?

April 5, 2025

Divest Oregon introduced The Pause Act ( SB 681 ), with Chief Sponsor Oregon Senator Jeff Golden’s support, to enact a five-year moratorium on new or renewed Treasury investment in private fossil-fuel funds. Why The Pause Act? For the past 50 years, the finance sector has dangerously re-written the rules of the global economy, including here in Oregon. Wealth has been extracted from our communities while our greenhouse emissions skyrocket. At the leading edge of this transformation has been the aggressive expansion of the private investment sector, generally referred to as private equity, which has over a trillion dollars in fossil fuel investments. The Oregon PERS portfolio is heavily weighted to private investments, which make up approximately half of the fund. The Pause Act is based on a key provision in past Treasurer Read’s net zero plan – which recognizes that portfolio emissions cannot be meaningfully reduced without ending new investment in long-term private funds holding fossil fuels. In the year since Treasurer Read announced his plan, to the public’s knowledge there has been no constraint on new private fund investments in fossil fuels. The Pause Act introduces transparency by requiring reporting to the public on progress under the bill. Current Treasurer Steiner has made a commitment to emission reduction of the portfolio. The Pause Act highlights the need for urgency, reflecting the impact of the climate crisis on all Oregonians and on the PERS portfolio. What The Pause Act accomplished Divest Oregon is engaged in ongoing discussions with the Treasury on a number of topics, including its stated goal of portfolio emission reduction and addressing climate risk to the portfolio. Divest Oregon’s years of pressure were a factor in Treasurer Read creating a Net Zero Plan and in the past and current Treasurers seeking to mandate the creation of an emissions-reduction plan through legislation. The Pause Act built on and continued that advocacy. SB 681, the Pause Act, created pressure on the Treasury, from the legislature and Divest Oregon members, to get specific as to how it will reduce emissions and confront the risk of climate to the portfolio. The Pause Act messaging made it clear: The Treasury must take an essential step to stop digging the hole deeper and address the elephant in the portfolio: long term private investment in fossil fuels. The bill died in committee despite an outpouring of public support. Its support was captured in the article from Oregon Capitol Chronicle (March 20, 2025). Why did the Treasury oppose the Pause Act? Treasurer Steiner made it clear that she would not support the Pause Act and would focus only on the Treasury’s bill, HB 2081. That bill set a goal of limited emission reduction and reporting, with no mention of private investments. (HB2081 was enacted as the “Treasury’s “Climate Resilience Investment Act”). The Treasury’s opposition to the Pause Act was problematic. It argued SB 681 would limit diversification, but SB 681 did not stop the Treasury from having a diversified strategy. There was nothing in the bill that said the Treasury should stop investing in private equity, real estate, or real assets – which are the major components of their private investments. The Pause Act required only that the Treasury would not invest in private investments that would be funding fossil fuel infrastructure, in accordance with the goals of the Net Zero Plan, as well as the goal of obtaining strong returns on investment: Private investments have not always provided strong returns. Treasury’s testimony on returns compared private equity with public equity returns. That comparison was a selective misdirection. The Real Assets asset class, which are private investments, actually has lower 5 & 10-year returns than Public Equity, and yet those returns were not reported in their testimony. Moreover, the Real Assets class produces twice the emissions intensity of the Private Equity class. (For more details, see the Divest Oregon full response to the Treasury testimony.)

Oregon Treasury's Net Zero Plan 2024 Report - An Analysis

February 7, 2025

In December 2024, the Oregon Treasury published their Oregon Net Zero Plan 2024 Annual Report . Kudos to Treasurer Read for creating a Net Zero Plan and publishing the 2024 annual report before leaving office. Treasurer Read’s strong statement that climate risk is financial risk is essential context for the report. Divest Oregon published this analysis of the 2024 annual report including the following sections: Transition Readiness Framework/Carbon Intensive Review Manager Activity/Private Investments ESG Integration/Forming Alliances and Engagement Investing in climate-focused funds Proxy Voting Stewardship and Universal Ownership Divest Oregon strongly recommends the following: The Treasury's report should be sent to all PERS beneficiaries and prominently displayed on the Treasury website. Stakeholder input should be solicited during the formulation of Treasury action in this sphere and before the publication of the next plan report.

Press Release: “First-in-the-nation” Pause Act will protect Oregon retirees from private equity’s overexposure to fossil fuels

January 14, 2025

“First-in-the-nation” Pause Act will protect Oregon retirees from private equity’s overexposure to fossil fuels

New Report! A Comparison of US Pension Funds' Net Zero Plans

January 14, 2025

Few public pension fund trustees have adopted a plan to address the risk of climate change to their portfolio. Oregon should be applauded as one of them, yet how does Oregon’s proposed plan compare to the major net zero plans of other US public pension plans? Divest Oregon has just released a comprehensive and detailed Comparison of US Pension Funds' Net Zero Plans Report . It allows the Oregon Treasurer and the Oregon Investment Council (OIC) to see what other fiduciaries are planning, to adopt best practices, and to change OIC policy as needed. Climate change is moving fast, and the report should be used by Oregon PERS and all fiduciaries to move faster in implementing a strong plan.

NEW REPORT: In 2023, 21 Private Equity Fund Holdings Emitted a Gigaton of Carbon Oregon owns 11 of them!

November 13, 2024

The newly released 2024 Private Equity Climate Risks Scorecard & Report by our allies, Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Global Energy Monitor, and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, gives us new insight into private equity firms and OST investments in these secret funds. Twenty-one major private equity firms manage $6 trillion in assets – and two-thirds of the energy companies in their portfolios are invested in fossil fuels. Oregon state employees’ pension plan (PERS) invests in 11 of these 21 funds.