{"id":95047,"date":"2026-01-09T19:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95047\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T19:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:13:14","slug":"new-nyc-comptroller-deep-in-review-of-lander-manager-recommendations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95047\/","title":{"rendered":"New NYC comptroller \u2018deep in review\u2019 of Lander manager recommendations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Ayman Siam\/Office of NYC Comptroller<\/p>\n

Newly elected New York City comptroller Mark Levine is \u201cdeep in review\u201d of recommendations by his predecessor Brad Lander to pull pension mandates from BlackRock and Fidelity Investments.<\/p>\n

In his first interview with a financial news publication, Levine told Responsible Investor that his office was \u201cactively\u201d reviewing the input from Lander\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deep in review of everything he recommended and I take our climate goals very seriously,\u201d Levine said. \u201cI think we should hold our fund managers to extremely high standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at our fund managers to understand whether they are indeed living up to those standards, and we\u2019re going to continue to hold every fund manager to extremely high standards on climate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lander recommended late last year<\/a> that three of the city\u2019s five pension systems drop BlackRock, Fidelity Investments and PanAgora Asset Management after the firms failed to satisfy expectations for decarbonisation plans and stewardship. PanAgora was subsequently removed from the list after resubmitting an improved decarbonisation plan.<\/p>\n

However, trustees of the New York City Employees\u2019 Retirement System, Teachers\u2019 Retirement System and Board of Education Retirement System did not vote on whether to accept Lander\u2019s recommendations before he left office at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n

Levine said he was unable to comment on whether Lander\u2019s recommendations were a course of action that he was committed to, given the ongoing review.<\/p>\n

Under previous comptrollers, the New York City pension systems have been active shareholder advocates<\/a>, filing resolutions on topics from banks\u2019 green financing ratios to freedom of association.<\/p>\n

Levine \u201cintends to continue that level of activism\u201d, he told RI, adding that the comptroller\u2019s office is working on proposals for this year\u2019s proxy season. \u201cWe are going to be activist,\u201d he said. \u201cWe continue to care about climate and housing and transparency and more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given current regulatory challenges with the filing of shareholder proposals in the US<\/a>, Levine said \u201call options are on the table\u201d when it comes to alternative tactics, including vote-no campaigns against directors and strategic litigation. \u201cThis office has used those tools in the past, and we wouldn\u2019t hesitate to use them in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Housing focus<\/p>\n

A key campaign issue for Levine was affordable housing in New York City.<\/p>\n

While acknowledging that his \u201cnumber one obligation is to serve as the fiduciary of the pension system to ensure that we maximise risk-adjusted returns and are good stewards of retirement savings\u201d, Levine said the NYC pension portfolios could help address housing affordability in the city.<\/p>\n

This includes by helping finance affordable housing that \u201cotherwise wouldn\u2019t get built\u201d or might be lost to affordability. He also highlighted previous work by the NYC pension systems to set expectations of investee companies that own rental housing.<\/p>\n

Under the current strategic asset allocation, the systems can deploy up to 2 percent of their portfolio in \u201ceconomically targeted investments\u201d. These are defined as investments that boost the New York economy while also meeting the same standards for risk-return as the rest of the portfolio.<\/p>\n

The systems are currently at a 1 percent allocation, and Levine is keen to see this rise towards the cap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to make affordable housing the top priority in those additional investments,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve already started talking to the trustees about this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very early stage but I certainly intend to bring investment recommendations to them that achieve risk-adjusted returns consistent with our goals but also advance the cause of building more affordable housing in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n

The systems will soon begin a strategic asset review \u2013 held roughly every three years \u2013 that will give the comptroller\u2019s office an opportunity to examine affordable housing, green infrastructure and other climate issues, Levine added.<\/p>\n

From president to comptroller<\/p>\n

Born in Chicago, Levine worked as a teacher in his early career before founding a co-operatively owned credit union in New York. He was elected to the city council in 2014 and became borough president for Manhattan in 2021.<\/p>\n

Becoming the city\u2019s comptroller, he told RI, is \u201cin a sense, a job I\u2019ve been preparing for my entire life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Founding a credit union provided \u201ca good grounding in the power of finance and economics to create opportunity and to advance towards the goal of equity\u201d, he said. \u201cI see myself as working on those goals on a grand scale now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis office is important at any time, because really city government doesn\u2019t function without a well-run comptroller\u2019s office. We have real, severe challenges here. So I think the office is going to be more relevant than ever and more important than ever, and I couldn\u2019t be more excited to be taking on this new role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about other ambitions for his term, Levine said he had \u201ca broader agenda to help modernise city government, using the powers of this office to really drag us into the 21st century\u201d.<\/p>\n

Flagging the fact that some city processes still use fax machines, he added: \u201cModernising city government will be a major goal of mine, so we have better services for people in need and better for taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ayman Siam\/Office of NYC Comptroller Newly elected New York City comptroller Mark Levine is \u201cdeep in review\u201d of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29454,7443,44452,21805,9,56,63,65,64,10315],"class_list":["post-95047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-asset-managers","tag-climate-change","tag-mandates","tag-net-zero","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-pension-funds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}