RP makes final bid to persuade CalPERS to stay

WASHINGTON – A Philippine delegation led by ambassador to Washington Albert del Rosario will meet in Sacramento on Thursday with investment board members of America’s largest pension fund in a final effort to persuade the fund not to withdraw its investments in Philippine stocks.

The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) will rule on April 19 whether or not to divest its estimated

$67-million stake in Philippine stocks.

CalPERS decides which emerging equity markets it will invest in based on a report prepared by its consultant, Wilshire Associates, which evaluates candidates on economic factors such as market liquidity and volatility, as well as political stability, financial transparency and labor standards.

In February Wilshire gave the Philippines a failing score of 1.87 points, just shy of the cut-off score of two points the country needs to be included in CalPERS’ list of permissible equity investments.

After appealing Wilshire’s evaluation report, the Philippines in March received a 30-day reprieve to allow it to present additional technical information that might improve its score.

The delegation believes that new information forwarded to Wilshire should increase the Philippines’ score to 2.245.

"Based on our submissions we are very hopeful we will pass. But we won’t know until CalPERS announces the decision on Monday," said the Philippine Embassy political head Lourdes Yparraguirre, a member of the delegation.

She said the delegation was continuing work on "sharpening the technical merits of our case" until the last moment.

The Monday meeting is scheduled to start at 9:30 am Pacific Time (12:30 am Tuesday, Manila time).