2020-12-22-RB-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Recap of the December 22, 2020 Retirement Board meeting: The Lexington Retirement Board met remotely through Zoom tele-conferencing during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The Town Clerks Office posted the meeting,which included the information for any interested party to join the call. All Board members were present for this meeting. Chairman Robert Cunha called the meeting to order at 8:30 am. The Board accepted the 123120 Warrant and the December payroll. The November minutes and October financials were reviewed and approved. Bob Cunha reviewed the December agenda will all Board members and staff in attendance. He informed the Board he would depart the meeting at 9:00 am. Joe Foley would then chair the meeting. The meeting began with an update on the Robert Magarian overpayment issue. The Retirement Office is yet to hear from Mr. Magarian or his attorney. Our attorney, Michael Sacco, has reached out to them, but has not heard back. The Retirement Office will check with Michael Sacco to see if we should send a Certified Letter to Mr. Magarian to inform him we will be stopping his pension until a resolution can be determined. The stoppage would begin with the January 29, 2021 pension payment. All Board members received PERAC Memo#27 regarding Board training for Q1 2021 via email. Bob Cunha advised members to read and review the schedule of webinars that will be available in the coming months. The Board discussed the RFP search underway to replace Dan Sherman Actuarial Services. Four viable candidates were named and reviewed; Segal, KMS, Stone, and Foster& Foster. Bob Cunha motioned to narrow the search to two or three candidates. This motion was seconded by Joe Foley and unanimously approved by Fred Weiss and Alan Fields. The next step will be to interview the viable candidates via Zoom in early 2021. Then, the Board will be given scoring sheets to evaluate the candidates before a final decision can be determined. It was noted we received a call notice from Angelo Gordon for$375,000.00, due 12/23/20. A distribution for$48,374.00 from White Oak was received on 12/18/20. Henry Jaung, Stephen MacLellan, and Thomas Dunleavy presented the Meketa portfolio update at 8:45. The portfolio balance as of November 30, 2020 was $198,127,102.00, up$12.5m from the prior month. Heading into December 2020,the YTD performance is up 9.1%. November was a strong month for the portfolio. Our US Equity holdings continue to be the main driver of success; posting a YTD of 21.9%. Fidelity Contrafund and KAR continue to perform outstanding for the portfolio. The Real Estate Asset holdings have been fully dissolved into the cash fund. Meketa and the Board entertained some ideas about portfolio changes in early 2021. We continue to be overweight in Domestic Equities. Currently holding public equities at 60%. It is doing excellent, but not sure how long its run will last in 2021. Henry mentioned maybe adding a private debt manager to the portfolio. With a high cash balance approaching$22.3m, it might be time to deploy some of that cash into another investment sector. Fred suggested maybe looking into the fixed income bucket. The portfolio remains light in that sector. Bonds were discussed briefly,yet Alan had reservations about it. The fear of interest rates going up in 2021 could put a dent in our portfolio. Henry concluded that we should consider an equity class restructure for 2021 and discuss in more detail at the January& February Board meetings.