SBCERA Takes Action to Divest Russian Investments

At its meeting on March 3, 2022, the SBCERA Board of Retirement voted unanimously to divest from Russian-related assets now and in the future. The Board took this action in response to Russia’s recent military invasion of Ukraine and directed staff to divest existing assets as soon as practicable and withhold future investments in Russian holdings until further notice. 

SBCERA holds Russia-related assets through various comingled accounts worth approximately $20 million as of January 31, 2022, and $13 million through Emerging Market Equity futures—for a total position of $33 million.  This is about 0.23% of SBCERA’s more than $14 billion investment portfolio. 

There are current sanctions, market restrictions, and closure of local stock exchanges which have created significant limitations on SBCERA’s ability to liquidate its Russian holdings.  We will be working closely with our managers and our custodian, State Street Bank, which is also required to comply with many of the sanction requirements, to develop a divestment strategy in response to the Board’s action.  We will also continue to monitor evolving sanctions, federal actions, and anything else that can affect our investment activities.

SBCERA remains financially secure to pay the promised benefits to our members and beneficiaries, and we continue to strategically invest in sectors and assets that have a strong return.  We have a proactive investment strategy in place that both protects and provides retirement security to our members now and well into the future.

For more information, contact: Olivia Applegate, Communications & Stakeholder Relations Manager at oapplegate@sbcera.org or 909.341.0651.