I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
The New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (ERB) has sued Aldus Equity, the state’s former investment adviser, the Albuquerque Journal is reporting.
The agency filed two suits this week against Aldus and other defendants in the Santa Fe state district court, according to the state’s case look up system.
According to the Journal, the agency is accusing the Dallas firm of racketeering, fraud, breach of contract and professional negligence in the lawsuits.
The “ERB put more than a half-billion dollars into equity funds on Aldus’ recommendation,” the Journal reports. The paper then goes on to say of the lawsuit:
“It claims the ERB paid more than $1.8 million for services ‘inadequately and illegally rendered. The ERB missed investment opportunities and made investments it likely wouldn’t have if Aldus officials had been giving good financial advice instead of serving the interests of their friends and connections.”
Aldus’ founder Saul Meyer has pleaded guilty to securities fraud in New York. In his pleadings in New York Meyer admitted that on numerous occasions, contrary to his fiduciary duty to the state, his company had “recommended proposed investments that were pushed on him by politically-connected individuals in New Mexico.” Meyer went on to say in that statement that he knew “that these politically-connected individuals or their associates stood to benefit financially or politically from the investments and that the investments were not necessarily in the best economic interest of New Mexico.”
The ERB’s plans to sue Aldus are well documented and represents more than a year of work in getting the suit ready.
In June ERB’s chief counsel Chris Schatzman told The Independent that Aldus Equity had recommended 28 or 29 investments to the ERB, but the agency had invested in around 20.
