Private Equity Generated Record Returns for West Virginia’s Teachers, First-Responders, and Dedicated Public Servants

Today, the American Investment Council (AIC) released the second video in a new series of interviews conducted by Hill TV examining how private equity investments are supporting the retirements of dedicated public servants across America. Today’s video features an interview with Jim Herrington, who is the Private Equity Investment Officer for the West Virginia Investment Management Board (WVIMB). The WVIMB recently placed second in a report released by the American Investment Council, which ranks public pension funds with the highest private equity returns:

I’m honored to be on [the American Investment Council’s] list,” said  WVIMB Private Equity Investment Officer Jim Herrington. There are quite a few of my peers that I respect the most that are also on that list with [the West Virginia Investment Management Board].

West Virginia’s teachers, first-responders, public employees, and other public servants benefitted from a 16.06 percent annualized 10-year return from the pension fund’s $2.2 billion private equity allocation. Herrington concludes the interview by recommending that the chief investment officers of public pension funds across America should investigate the long-term benefits of investing in private equity.

The Charleston Gazette-Mail, one of the largest papers in West Virginia, recently covered the WVIMB’s second-place ranking in the AIC report. Craig Slaughter, the Executive Director of the WVIMB, is quoted as saying:

While the success of the IMB is a team effort, Jim Herrington, the IMB’s private equity investment officer, deserves a great deal of credit for the excellent performance of the private equity portfolio.”

Herrington’s interview with The Hill is the second in a new series of videos that will feature experts with first-hand knowledge of how private equity supports public pension beneficiaries. Watch the full interview here.

Watch the previous interview with Public School and Education Employee Retirement Systems of Missouri Chief Investment Officer Craig Husting here.

Read the American Investment Council’s recently released public pension report here.