Retiring CFL president Ramirez to help lead fund for GCM Grosvenor
When Michael Sacks looks at retiring Chicago Federation of Labor President Jorge Ramirez, he sees a “great dealmaker” whose 12- year tenure showed he can get infrastructure deals done in a way that “respects labor’s values.”
Now, Ramirez will put those skills to work for GCM Grosvenor, the Sacks- run, Chicago- based firm billed as one of the “world’s largest independent alternative asset management firms.”
Ramirez stepped down from the CFL Tuesday to join Grosvenor as managing director of a new fund to bankroll investments in infrastructure projects acrossNorth America.
Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois will, however, be offlimits, saidSacks, a close friend and adviser to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and one of the mayor’s most reliable campaign contributors. Sacks imposed those restrictions to avoid conflicts or questions about his political connections.
The goal is to use public and private investments and money from labor pension funds to rebuild aging infrastructure.
“That can be anything from power transmission to airports,” Sacks said.
Sacks declined to provide details about the size of the fund.
Successful investors in infrastructure must commit to being a partner with labor in a way that goes “way beyond responsible contractor policies,” Sacks said.
“There’s all of this money already earmarked for infrastructure, but we’re not getting any infrastructure deals done. Why? Because the money doesn’t know how to work with government. Doesn’t know how to work with labor,” he added.
“They never think about talking to labor first. If you have a . . . sophisticated financial organization that can go toe- to- toe with Wall Street and that organization also knows how to speak to government and speak to labor, I believe you have an edge.” That’s where Ramirez comes in. “He’s a great dealmaker” and knows how to “get something done in a way that works for everybody,” Sacks said.
“The whole business of infrastructure investing is . . . a deals business. You’re working a deal. The deal has a rhythm. You have to figure out how to solve the problem, meet everybody’s objectives. Everybody has to compromise a little. Jorge is natural at that.”
Last year, Ramirez led a labor- dominated investment group that purchased the Chicago Sun- Times. He plans to stay on as the newspaper’s board chairman.
Ramirez, 47, said he couldn’t be more excited about putting his dealmaking skills to work.
“Say a city around the country needs something. We would go in and figure out a way to put a deal together — whether it’s using public dollars, private dollars, pension funds [ or a combination of all three]. Whatever we need to do to get the deal done” while preserving key provisions, such as project labor agreements and prevailingwage guidelines, he said.
His new job “pulls together everything I’ve done throughout my entire career with all of the folks that I’ve done it with.”
That includes Matt Hynes, Emanuel’s former political and legislative point man, who’s working on the same fund at GCM Grosvenor.
“In the last 10 years, we moved close to $ 10 billion worth of investment in infrastructure into the city alone, using pension fund money to put people to work,” Ramirez said, citing projects such as Wrigley Field andWintrust Arena.
Ramirez had been set to pass the baton to newly elected CFL President Robert Reiter on July 1. He’s stepping down now to allow Reiter, the federation’s former secretarytreasurer, to “hit the ground running.”