Chicago Pension Investments: Rahm Emanuel's Proposed Merger Could Benefit Campaign Donors

Rahm Emanuel is disgusting and I hate him the power of a thousand suns.

Disgusting

Chicago Pension Investments: Rahm Emanuel's Proposed Merger Could Benefit Campaign Donors

Just 12 weeks after Rahm Emanuel won a bruising battle for re-election, the Chicago mayor has unveiled a pension initiative that could be a significant financial boon for his largest campaign contributors. On Wednesday, the mayor proposed shifting city teachers' retirement savings into a state fund that invests heavily in -- and pays big fees to -- financial firms whose executives bankrolled the mayor’s campaign.

At a city hall press conference, Emanuel portrayed the plan as a way to solve Chicago’s educational funding crisis. Emanuel said teachers could agree to either contribute 7 percent of their pay to the existing city pension system or merge the city’s own $11 billion teachers' pension fund -- controlled by the teachers themselves -- with the $45 billion state teachers' fund controlled, by statute, by Gov. Bruce Rauner. Emanuel said the latter proposal would mean that the state funds teacher pensions equitably. As of now, the city of Chicago pays a larger share of its teachers' pensions than other municipalities in Illinois do.

What the mayor did not say is that the initiative could end up shifting billions into a fund whose portfolio is run, in part, by Grosvenor Capital and Madison Dearborn Partners, two firms whose executives have together given over $4 million to the mayor's campaigns and affiliated PACs. That includes over $2.7 million from Grosvenor CEO Michael Sacks and his wife, Cari. Sacks has been called Emanuel’s “fixer” and “go-to guy;” he was appointed by Emanuel to serve as vice chairman of World Business Chicago, an economic development group that Emanuel chairs.

more: http://www.ibtimes.com/chicago-pension-investments-rahm-emanuels-proposed-merger-could-benefit-campaign-1993137