The board of the city’s largest pension fund, the New York City Employee Retirement System, unanimously voted to suspend the use of placement agents this morning.
The practice of using middlemen to orchestrate deals between the pension fund and its investors — which state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli recently banned at the state level — is under investigation by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
“The trustees and I believe that the best course of action at this time is to immediately suspend the use of placement agents involving private-equity investments,” city Comptroller William Thompson said.
Cuomo recently charged that Hank Morris, a longtime adviser to former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi, received payments for acting as a placement agent for the state pension fund, but the payments were really political payoffs.
The Post reported last week that Morris also earned a fee for acting as a middleman between the city pension fund and private-equity firm Quadrangle, which manages Mayor Bloomberg’s personal wealth.