Chris Christie Officials Sent Pension Money To Subsidiary of Donor’s Foreign Firm

Two years ago, as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie pursued re-election, his administration found itself mulling investment options for the state’s $80 billion pension fund. In one deal in May 2013, officials settled on a subsidiary of U.K.-based foreign financial conglomerate Prudential plc. With little fanfare, state pension overseers quickly endorsed the deal.

Weeks later, a Hong Kong-based executive director and board member of Prudential plc delivered a maximum $3,800 contribution to Christie’s gubernatorial campaign, followed by a maximum $32,400 donation to the Republican National Committee, which was about to launch a get-out-the-vote effort for Christie. Two months after that, New Jersey began moving public employees’ retirement savings into two funds managed by the Prudential subsidiary as part of the state’s new $300 million investment commitment to the company.

State and federal rules are designed to prevent firms that manage public pension money from contributing to the campaigns of public officials who have the authority to influence pension investments. The sequence of transactions in New Jersey, campaign finance experts say, is troubling.

"Pay-to-play laws are intended to stop the potential conflicts of interest and appearance of corruption that arises whenever executives at a financial firm make large political contributions to a governor and his political party around the time the state is picking the firm to handle pension system investments," said Larry Noble, a former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission who now works for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, a research group in Washington, D.C. "These situations undermine the public’s confidence in the integrity of government contracting."

Prudential plc said the donations from Barry Stowe, one of the firm's executive directors, were in no way improper.

"Prudential plc is one of the world's leading financial services groups, which employs 23,000 people across four continents and has more than $700 billion in assets under management," Prudential plc spokesperson Jonathan Oliver said in an emailed statement. "Mr. Stowe, who is a U.S. citizen, has donated to Chris Christie and several other candidates in a personal capacity. Until the approach by the International Business Times this week, he was unaware of the New Jersey pension fund’s investments with M&G." The company declined to make Stowe available for an interview, and Stowe did not respond to requests for comment.

The British insurer and financial services company (which is not related to Newark’s Prudential Financial) joins an extensive list of companies that received New Jersey pension money around the time firm executives made donations to Christie’s political apparatus and other Republican groups. Last year, IBTimes reported that the Christie-appointed head of New Jersey’s State Investment Council had been on regular conference calls with Christie campaign officials during the 2013 election, including those who oversaw the campaign’s fundraising.