Category: Investments

Regional banks, Jefferies shares tank as concerns about sour loans grow on Wall Street

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/16/regional-banks-and-jefferies-shares-tank-as-concerns-grow-on-wall-street-about-sour-loans.html

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Shares of regional banks and investment bank Jefferies tumbled on Thursday as fears mounted around some bad loans lurking on Wall Street.

Zions Bancorporation dropped more than 10% midday, as did Western Alliance Bancorp. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) lost around 4%, with all but one member of the popular fund on track to end Thursday’s session in the red.

….

The worries about the health of the banking industry originated with the bankruptcies of companies related to the auto sector: First Brands and Tricolor Holdings.

Shares of Jefferies, which has exposure to First Brands, fell more than 9% on Thursday. The investment bank’s stock has lost around 23% in October, making it poised to record its worst month since the Covid pandemic took hold in March 2020.

Jefferies said that hedge funds it runs are owed $715 million from companies tied to First Brands, while UBS said that it has about $500 million in exposure.

“When you see one cockroach, there are probably more,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said on the company’s earnings conference call earlier this week in relation to First Brands and Tricolor Holdings fallout.

Author(s): Alex Harring, Sarah Min

Publication Date:16 Oct 2025

Publication Site: CNBC

U.S. Insurers Report a 1% Increase in Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities Holdings in 2024, Still 2% Below 2022 Peak

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://content.naic.org/sites/default/files/capital-markets-special-reports-cmbs-ye2024.pdf

Graphic:

Executive Summary:

  • The U.S. insurance industry’s exposure to agency and private-label commercial mortgage-backed
    securities (CMBS) totaled $287 billion at year-end 2024, a 1% year-over-year (YOY) increase.
  • Property/casualty (P/C) insurance companies were the primary driver of growth, with their agency
    CMBS exposure rising 22% to $36 billion.
  • Agency CMBS accounted for 28% of U.S. insurers’ total CMBS exposure at year-end 2024, reflecting
    a steady increase from 24% at year-end 2022.
  • The credit quality of the CMBS portfolio remained stable overall, with investments carrying an
    NAIC 1 designation or NAIC 2 designation totaling 97.6% of total exposure at year-end 2024.
  • Office property delinquency rates remain elevated at 9.6% as of July 2025, according to S&P Global
    Ratings (S&P Global) data.

Author(s): Michele Wong and Hankook Lee

Publication Date: 16 Oct 2025

Publication Site: NAIC, Capital Markets Special Report

Oregon Treasury Doesn’t Know, Doesn’t Care It’s Invested In Risky Crypto!

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://pensionwarriorsdwardsiedle.substack.com/p/oregon-treasury-doesnt-know-doesnt

Excerpt:

I note with great emphasis: “We do not possess thorough look through ability.”

That’s the first time I’ve ever heard those confusing words. Here’s a translation:

  1. State pension fiduciaries have failed to demand that external investment managers disclose to the pension on a timely basis all investments, including but not limited to crypto, in their funds’ portfolios.
  2. State pension fiduciaries have failed to disclose to Oregonians information they don’t possess regarding the pension’s riskiest investments.
  3. State pension fiduciaries cannot be monitoring the risks related to crypto investments they do not know they own.

Bad enough that the Oregon State Treasury is gambling $60 billion in high-cost, high-risk alternative funds. State officials don’t know—and apparently don’t even care—what’s in those funds.

Author(s): Edward Siedle

Publication Date: 10 Sept 2025

Publication Site: Pension Warriors, substack

BlackRock calls out state officials for ‘politicization’ of public pensions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.esgdive.com/news/blackrock-responds-to-republican-democrat-state-finance-officials-politicization-public-pensions/759147/

Excerpt:

  • BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said letters sent to the firm by 26 Republican state finance officials in July and 17 Democrat state finance officials in August “continue a concerning trend by both parties of politicizing the management of public pension funds.” 
  • “Many of our clients value having BlackRock act as an engaged shareholder on their behalf,” S. Jane Moffat, BlackRock’s managing director of U.S. government affairs and public policy, told the finance officials in an Aug. 27 response letter. “At the same time, BlackRock is not an activist investor.”
  • BlackRock’s response comes after the state officials painted drastically different views of what they viewed as “fiduciary duty” in their letters. The coalition of Republican state officials urged the asset manager and other financial institutions to stop framing climate change as a long-term risk, while the coalition of Democrat officials looked to push BlackRock and others to reaffirm their commitment to managing climate change and other similar long-term risks.

Author(s): Lamar Johnson

Publication Date: 3 Sept 2025

Publication Site: ESG Dive

Dutch fund PFZW reduces BlackRock ties over clash on sustainability

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/dutch-fund-pfzw-reduces-blackrock-ties-over-clash-sustainability-2025-09-03/

Excerpt:

Dutch pension fund PFZW has stopped investing in stock funds managed by BlackRock (BLK.N), opens new tab, in part because of concerns over the U.S. firm’s voting record on sustainability issues, its lead asset manager PGGM said on Wednesday.

The move comes amid a wider activist campaign in the Netherlands to push the country’s large pension schemes to drop managers that have reduced support for climate change-linked resolutions at company meetings.

While some companies have scaled back the importance they attach to sustainability since the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump, many of the biggest Dutch pension funds still consider it the best long-term approach.

….

In June, U.S. asset owner the Sierra Club Foundation said it would move $10.5 million in assets because BlackRock had not pressed portfolio companies enough on climate.

In response to the PFZW move, a BlackRock spokesperson said: “BlackRock clients – including our Dutch clients – continue to invest through BlackRock to meet their sustainable investing goals, entrusting us to manage over $1 trillion in sustainable and transition assets on their behalf.”

Author(s): Bart H. Meijer and Simon Jessop

Publication Date: 3 Sept 2025

Publication Site: Reuters