Calpers Looks Close To Home as Place For New Investment --- Proposals From DreamWorks And `Magic' Johnson Seen As Bid to Boost California
Is the $78 billion California Public Employees Retirement System, the nation's largest public retirement fund and best-known keeper of corporate rectitude, on a fling?</br></br>In recent weeks, the huge pension fund has been weighing an investment in DreamWorks SKG, an entertainment venture that at the moment is composed of little more than the minds and egos of three of Hollywood's best-known moguls.</br></br>Now the retirement fund, known as Calpers, says it's strongly considering a $50 million real-estate venture in California with one of America's best-known basketball stars: Earvin "Magic" Johnson.</br></br>It's pretty high-leaping stuff for the once-staid keeper of police and tax collectors' pensions, whose formidable public presence to date has focused on chiding corporate chieftains for poor performance and salary grabs.</br></br>Insiders at the giant retirement pool say the two proposed ventures, neither of which has been finalized, do indeed signal a change in strategy. Other investments soon will surface that will be far more centered on California than in the past, according to these people. And the lineup at Calpers itself has shifted, with new appointments to almost every top staff position.