California Public Employees Retirement System

California's huge government pension fund is expected to report today a whopping annual loss of an estimated $56.8 billion, almost a quarter of its investment portfolio. The loss at the California Public Employees' Retirement System for the fiscal year ended June 30 is the second in a row for the country's largest fund. A year ago, CalPERS reported an $8.5-billion loss, as the severe recession began to take hold.

The head of the Washington State Investment Board is heading south to Sacramento to oversee investments at the nation's largest public pension fund, the California Public Employees' Retirement System. As chief investment officer, Joseph A. Dear, 57, faces the challenge of reversing steep losses inflicted by the financial downturn on the $178-billion fund, known as CalPERS.

Patricia Clarey, a top healthcare company executive and former chief of staff to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has been appointed to the board of the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the country's largest government pension fund. Clarey, a Studio City resident, represents the state personnel board on the 13-member panel that manages investments to pay for retirement benefits and health coverage for 1.3 million state, school and local public employees, retirees and their families.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System singled out restaurant operator Cheesecake Factory Inc., home builder Standard-Pacific Corp. and three other companies for what the pension fund described as poor financial performance and corporate governance. Also cited on CalPERS' annual "Focus List" were furniture maker La-Z-Boy Inc., medical equipment company Invacare Corp. and insurance brokerage Hilb Rogal & Hobbs Co.

Israel Briceno has been too busy running his tamale shop to think about saving for retirement. And no one at Briceno's bank has ever suggested he start putting money aside for when he's done working. But now that a local legislator has introduced a bill to create a state-sponsored IRA, Briceno, 28, is interested in signing up along with his mother, Maria Morales, and one other full-time worker at the aptly named Mom's Tamales in Lincoln Heights.

A California real estate partnership that the California Public Employees' Retirement System poured about $1 billion into has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. LandSource Communities Development's assets include 15,000 acres of undeveloped land in the Santa Clarita Valley, among the largest land deals to falter amid the national housing glut. The land was appraised at $2.6 billion at the time of the CalPERS investment, but has dropped considerably in value since then.

The California Public Employees Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund, may sell part of its $2 billion in residential land holdings after the investments lost 31% last year amid falling home prices and forecasts of further declines. Sacramento-based CalPERS hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to review seven land deals that it made with joint-venture partners and real estate advisors, fund spokeswoman Pat Macht said.

The newest overseer of America's largest pension fund, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, is a political insider with a vast resume. Louis F. Moret, appointed to the 13-person CalPERS board earlier this year, has served as chief operating officer of Southern California's regional planning agency, a Los Angeles public works commissioner, chief of staff for a former assemblyman and, perhaps most famously, as a boxing referee. Less well known are his troubles in South Gate.

The president of California's huge public pension fund, the nation's largest, expressed confidence Monday that the fund would see its way through the deepening global financial crisis -- even though it has lost $54 billion since July 1. The California Public Employees Retirement System, known as CalPERS, had a total portfolio value of $185 billion on Friday, down 23% from $239 billion at the start of its fiscal year.

The value of residential real estate investments owned by the country's largest public pension fund has plummeted 35% -- a paper loss of $3.3 billion for current workers, retirees and their state and local government employers. The California Public Employees' Retirement System reported Wednesday that in the year ended June 30 its real estate portfolio declined to $6.08 billion from $9.36 billion, based on 461 independent appraisals of its investments in 288,000 housing units across the country.