“Our primary goal is to protect our funds,” said Jim Moye, Orange County’s chief deputy comptroller. The county’s school board withdrew $388 million this week, after other governments, including Dade County and Pompano Beach, had taken back investments.
The State Board of Administration manages about $42 billion of short-term investments, including the pool, as well as Florida’s $137 billion pension fund. Almost 6 percent, or $2.4 billion, of its short-term investments are in asset-backed commercial paper that has defaulted.
About $19 billion remained in the pool after the withdrawals, which came after the state overseer reported its holdings of downgraded debt at a public meeting Nov. 14.
Update: Bloomberg has this also:
The pool had $3 billion of withdrawals today alone, putting assets at $15 billion, said Coleman Stipanovich, executive director of the State Board of Administration, manager of the pool along with other short-term investments and the state’s pension fund.
“If we don’t do something quickly, we’re not going to have an investment pool,” said Stipanovich at the meeting in the state capitol in Tallahassee.
There must be some reason investors are taking their money out. Wonder what the “State of Florida” is invested in?
bl