America’s teachers are facing a $100 million conundrum.
That’s roughly the amount various teacher pension, school and retirement funds have invested in the publicly traded stocks of four gun makers, according to regulatory filings.
It’s a problem that has sent them scrambling since a 20-year-old man used a semiautomatic rifle in a massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
They are being forced to choose between the typically reliable investment in gun makers and the public outcry for decisive action.
The $155 billion California State Teachers Retirement System leads gun investments among the nation’s state pensions with a total of $7.4 million in Smith & Wesson, Sturm Ruger & Co. and Olin Corp. It is also leading the charge on divesting those stocks.
Calstrs is reviewing its $500 million investment in Cerberus, the private-equity firm that owns Freedom Group, which makes the Bushmaster assault rifle used by Adam Lanza in the school massacre. Cerberus quickly said it would sell its stake.
Calstrs told The Post that it “immediately began analyzing our exposure across the entire portfolio to identify all US and non US gun manufacturers” following the tragedy.
It will review the holdings at a Jan. 9 meeting of its investment committee.
New York City is also “aggressively exploring all options, including divestment,” said Matthew Sweeney, a spokesman.
The city’s various retirement funds hold $17.9 million in public equities of four gun companies, but only a portion of that is in the city teachers’ retirement fund.
The fourth gun maker is Brazil’s Forjas Taurus.
Divestment won’t be simple for many, however, as the stocks are often held in passively managed funds that replicate market indexes, which include Sturm Ruger, a Southport, Conn., firearms manufacturer.
“This has been so sudden, and the thought of investments in these companies didn’t come on our radar screen until Monday,” said Beau Barnes, the deputy executive secretary of the $15 billion Kentucky Teacher Retirement System.
Kentucky owns about $537,000 worth of Sturm Ruger through an internal fund that replicates market iindexes. Barnes said the fund is “monitoring” the situation. “It’s too early to say anything beyond that.”
The New York State Teachers’ Retirement System owns $6.3 million in stocks in both Olin and Sturm Ruger.
John Cardillo, a spokesman for the system, said that its Sturm Ruger holdings are also in “passively managed funds tracking indexes such as the S&P 1500,” but he declined to say whether or not the investment was under review.