The California Public Employees' Retirement System, or CalPERS, has led the way to many significant improvements in how companies and markets are run. It led the campaign to unseat the head of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Grasso, over his runaway compensation, and one against Disney Chairman Michael Eisner amid a host of governance problems at that company in 2004. More recently, after the "London Whale" $6.2-billion trading loss in 2013 revealed governance failures at JPMorgan Chase & Co., CalPERS backed an effort to unseat three of the company's board members. CalPERS similarly fought a successful three-year battle to get Apple to give shareholders meaningful input in board elections. And in 2014, CalPERS shocked markets when it announced that it was divesting from hedge funds, a move that helped drive down the fees those funds charge.

Source: Los Angeles Times May 06, 2018 11:03 UTC