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Comment by lisplist | Hacker News Reader

Speculation is that it’s beneficial to IBM because the money will be under their management rather than Fidelity’s. What exactly they’re allowed to do with that money, I’m unsure.

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Pension funds are carefully regulated and cannot be in risky investments. IBM cannot invest in IBM, they have to invest in various bonds. Before pension regulations a few pensions invested in the.company and employees discovered that was a bad idea when the company went bankrupt just before they were set to retire and their pension value went to zero.

I'm not sure if this is legally a pension, if not assume it is worth nothing. If it is the US government backs it and so if you work for IBM for 30 it is a great deal, pensions are defined income so you don't have to worry about if you will live to 66 or 120. (If like most you switch jobs it is terrible)

Pension funds invest in risky assets, just at a lower percentage than say a hedge fund with accredited investor status. The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan lost $100m to the FTX bandits last year.

https://www.ft.com/content/29c67711-377c-4435-9c90-280852374...

If you manage a pension fund, especially a public pension fund, putting any of the money in crypto should be grounds for immediate termination at the very least, and possibly civil and criminal penalties. There's no excuse for touching that radioactive shitpile with other people's money after the countless demonstrations of fraud and incompetence.

Their statement explains it pretty reasonably: https://www.otpp.com/en-ca/about-us/news-and-insights/2022/o...

> Our investment represented less than 0.05% of our total net assets

> Naturally, not all of the investments in this early-stage asset class perform to expectations, however, since inception, TVG has delivered solidly on intended objectives.

Legally, I believe this is a pension fund. Still, they have to be pocketing the difference somewhere because why else would they make such a controversial decision that also increases administrative overhead?

The current decision making ranks at IBM can do plenty of shady stuff then depart, before legal problems come home to roost. Years and years at least.

It’s not a pension at all.

401ks are a separate thing entirely. Generally they don’t let you invest in individual stocks at all.

Is there a rule to prevent them from investing in a fund that invests primarily in IBM?

Federal pension law put into place since (because) the events I mentioned.

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