By Dakota Smith
Daily News, Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES — One of Los Angeles’ pension funds is dropping its holding in Remington Outdoor, the gun manufacturer whose rifle was used in the 2012 Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre.
Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions is selling the high-profile holding for financial, not ethical, reasons, LAFPP general manager Ray Ciranna said, noting the investment is worth about $50,000, and the company isn’t performing to the fund’s liking.
Investment firm Cerberus Capital Management, which owns Remington Outdoor, agreed earlier this month to buy back the stock after being unable to sell the company itself. Cerberus was under pressure from other pension funds — notably the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) — to divest or sell the holding because of the gunmaker’s affiliation with the Newtown shooting.
"(Cerberus) knew it was sensitive,” Ciranna said of the Remington stock. “They had been trying to sell it.”
The sell-off by LAFPP highlights the different approaches taken by Los Angeles’ three pension funds regarding investing in gun companies amid pressure by groups to unload such holdings following mass shootings in the U.S.
After Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 schoolchildren and six teachers in Newtown, Conn., then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged the city’s pension funds, which pay for the retirement benefits of city employees, to consider divesting from companies that manufacture assault weapons.
Despite the mayor’s push, the pension boards of Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System (LACERS) and the Los Angeles Water and Power Employees’ Retirement Plan declined to divest.
Only the board of the LAFPP system voted to adopt a new divestment strategy for gun holding and moved to ban direct holdings of gun manufacturers that sell weapons banned in California.
However, LAFPP allows those companies if the holding is in a private equity investment pool, such as the relationship between Cerberus and Remington Outdoor. With the decision to sell this month, LAFPP has liquidated all its gun holdings, Ciranna said.
Public employee pension funds in numerous cities, including Chicago, New York and Oakland, sold off their gun holdings after the Newtown shooting, said Jennifer Fiore, executive director of Campaign to Unload, a Washington, D.C.-based group that advocates for divestment of gun companies.
The National Rifle Association didn’t return a call seeking comment.
As of this month, LACERS has about $36.5 million in holdings in gun and ammunition companies and retailers that sell guns, according to the fund. Los Angeles Water and Power Employees’ Retirement Plan has about $41.9 million in such holdings.
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