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By Jim Mackinnon
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008
Among the 100 top shareholders in investment bank Bear Stearns & Co. are Ohio's two largest public pensions, the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio fund and the Ohio Public Employees Retirement fund.
STRS was the troubled bank's 43rd largest shareholder as of Dec. 31, while OPER was 57th, according to the most recent data from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
But the amount of Bear Stearns stock the Ohio funds own is a minuscule percentage of their overall assets of about $150 billion, according to records and the organization.
STRS lost about $17 million in its Bear Stearns holdings Monday as it sold all but 127,000 of its 790,000 shares at between $3.50 and $4 a share, spokeswoman Laura Ecklar said.
That loss was more than made up by the $27 million increase in value during the day in the 6.6 million shares it owns in JPMorgan Chase & Co., she said. JPMorgan shares rose 10 percent after the company agreed to buy Bear Stearns as part of a financial system rescue package engineered by the Federal Reserve and the federal government.
Bear Stearns stock on Friday, when
it closed at $30 a share, made up only 0.03 percent of the estimated $73.5 billion in diversified assets owned by the STRS pension fund, she said. The pension currently pays 122,000 retired Ohio teachers.
''In the last 24 hours, we have purchased $150 million in global and domestic equities,'' Ecklar said. ''We're long-term investors.''
Likewise, the Bear Stearns stock plunge would have only a small effect on the value of the estimated $69.7 billion in assets in the pension fund and $13.2 billion in assets in the health-care fund owned as of Dec. 31 by the Ohio Public Employees Retirement plan, spokesman Rich Baker said.
The funds pay benefits to about 206,000 retirees and beneficiaries, Baker said.
The two funds sold most of their Bear Stearns shares last week, he said. On Monday, the funds lost about $300,000 when the value of its remaining shares plunged, while the plans' JPMorgan shares rose $23.6 million, he said.
''These type of situations typically have a minimum impact on us,'' he said.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.
Among the 100 top shareholders in investment bank Bear Stearns & Co. are Ohio's two largest public pensions, the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio fund and the Ohio Public Employees Retirement fund.
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