DiNapoli raps DFS over hedge $ fuss

New York’s top financial services regulator used “inaccurate” and “incomplete” data earlier this year when it blasted the state’s pension fund for paying exorbitantly high fees on its hedge fund investments, the state Comptroller said Friday.

Thomas DiNapoli, in a 17-page rebuttal, said claims by the Department of Financial Services that he, as the $184.5 billion fund’s sole trustee, paid too much in hedge fund fees is “unsupported, wrong or inappropriate.”

The letter was written by Nancy Groenwegen, counsel to the Comptroller.

The DFS argued that over the last eight years hedgies cost the pension fund $3.8 billion in fees and underperformance. Over a 10-year period ending March 31, 2016 hedge funds had an annualized rate of return of 3.23 percent compared to global equities, which returned 5.38 percent.

“There are multiple instances where DFS relies on inaccurate or incomplete data to make claims that are unsupported, wrong or inappropriate,” Groenwegen wrote.

The DFS report is “fundamentally flawed” for making “apples to oranges” comparisons between hedge-fund returns and fees against lower-cost passively managed equity investments, Groenwegen wrote.

The DFS acknowledged receipt of the letter and, in a statement on Friday, praised the Comptroller for not putting new money in hedge funds.

But it could not resist a subtle dig at DiNapoli, saying it noted “that the response does not dispute, because it cannot, that the [fund] has paid high hedge fund fees while performance has lagged” other invesments.