Gov. Christie’s investment chief has major financial ties to firm that got $300M in NJ pension cash
Source: PandoDaily
By David Sirota
It is Monday afternoon, and Bob Grady – the national Republican power-broker behind Chris Christie’s prospective presidential campaign – is angrily lecturing me on the murky world of investments. As one of Christie’s closest advisers and as the governor’s hand-picked chairman of the New Jersey Investment Council, Grady is specifically lecturing me about a decision by the council to hand $300 million of state pension money to private equity firm the Carlyle Group.
As I explained to him, I was calling about the deal because a Pando investigation has found that Grady also happens to be a former longtime executive at Carlyle whose financial disclosure forms (embedded below) show he still receives income from Carlyle investments, still owns a stake in Carlyle Group entities and now works at another fund that has investments with – you guessed it – Carlyle.
During our call, Grady insisted that he officially recused himself from involvement in the November Carlyle transaction — something which would typically signal a clear conflict of interest. He then insisted that the New Jersey investment is in “a new fund and there’s no overlap” with his own holdings. Further he insisted that it was “impossible” for his own holdings to preference him in any way that could allow him to benefit from New Jersey’s $300m deal with Carlyle.
In fact, as the results of our investigation — detailed in full below — show, it is far from “impossible” for Grady to benefit from the deal, as even the Carlyle Group admits. Also, while Grady is telling the truth about having recused himself from negotiations, that single act of transparency (which, as experts explain below, is largely symbolic) stands in stark contrast to the otherwise total secrecy surrounding the transaction.
Read more:
http://pando.com/2014/04/16/new-jersey-pension-1/
