Donald Pierce
Donald Pierce, CIO of the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association, will retire later this year, the pension fund announced Wednesday.
Pierce joined SBCERA in 2001 and was elevated to CIO in 2010. During his tenure at the pension, assets under management grew to more than $17 billion from $5.1 billion. Pierce oversaw an expansion into international private equity, emerging market debt and option strategies in the plan’s investment mix, according to the SBCERA statement.
“It has been a privilege to serve SBCERA and its members,” Pierce said in a statement. “I’m proud of the investment program we’ve built, the strategies we’ve thoughtfully introduced, and—most importantly—the talented team that will carry this work forward. I have great confidence in SBCERA’s future and in the next generation of investment leadership.”
According to the SBCERA statement, it anticipates a successor will be selected from within the organization, noting it is “confident in the depth of its current investment team.” The fund has three senior investment officers who report to Pierce: Senior Investment Officer Amit Thanki and Investment Officer Thomas Kim, both 2023 CIO NextGen leaders, and Senior Investment Officer Jake Abbott.
SBCERA will discuss a transition plan at a meeting with its retirement board on February 4. Pierce will continue to serve as CIO during the transition period to a successor.
“Donald’s impact on SBCERA cannot be overstated,” said Debby Cherney, SBCERA’s CEO, in a statement. “Over the past 25 years, he has helped modernize and diversify our investment program while building a deep, highly capable team. His leadership, discipline, and long-term perspective have positioned SBCERA well for the future, and we are grateful for his service to our members.”
In 2022, in an interview with CIO, Pierce highlighted his view of the importance of an allocation to cash in the SBCERA portfolio as “an area we often rely on and use to opportunistically add to positions. … We see cash as having option value, and we like to wait for prices to come to us and then deploy our cash. … Cash gets no credit because, up until recently, it had a yield of close to nothing, and whatever it bought gets all the credit. The cash that facilitates a return gets denigrated by the lack of interest rates. What we don’t like to do is rely entirely on the market for liquidity. When times get tough, even Treasurys can be found to be tough.”
A recording of the entire conversation with Pierce is available here.
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Tags: Donald Pierce, SBCERA