NEWS - Calpers Seeks to Buy TARP Holdings, Citigroup Assets

Calpers Seeks to Buy TARP Holdings, Citigroup Assets
April 15 (Bloomberg) -- The California Public Employees’ Retirement System said it’s seeking opportunities to buy assets of Citigroup Inc. and other financial companies tied to the U.S. government’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Calpers, as the largest U.S. public pension manager is known, said today it’s setting aside “billions of dollars” amid the credit crunch and is ready to deploy capital. It added that there’s a “glimmer of hope” in the stock market.

The pension fund is seeking to buy “some of the assets of these financial companies such as Citi and the others, assets that they’re trying to get off their balance sheets,” Henry Jones, a Calpers board of administration member, said in an interview after a speech in Seoul.