James H. Grossman Jr., chief investment officer of the $72 billion Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System, Harrisburg, will retire effective May 1.
He will transfer to a newly created role of senior investment adviser on Dec. 9 until his retirement.
In addition, Glen R. Grell will retire as executive director effective Feb. 28. Mr. Grell will also assume a newly created role of senior adviser on Jan. 1.
The executives' retirements were voted on at the board's meeting Thursday. The board will begin a search for a new CIO and executive director.
This follows six board members in June calling for Messrs. Grossman's and Grell's removal from their respective roles. The resolution calling for a vote for new leadership was ultimately withdrawn with no reason given.
PennPSERS is under federal investigation after the board had discovered an error in its reported investment figures.
In December, PennPSERS reported a net annualized return of 6.38% for the nine years ended June 30, slightly above the 6.36% threshold for triggering additional contributions. But in March, the board had discovered an error in its reported investment figures and announced that a special internal investigation was being conducted to determine what role, if any, its staff and investment consultant Aon might have played in miscalculating its investment performance figures.
In April, the PennPSERS board confirmed that a federal investigation had been launched into the state pension plan, saying in a news release that it had been "served with a grand jury subpoena for documents and is cooperating fully with the request by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania."
Following the announcement of the investigation, PennPSERS spokeswoman Evelyn Williams declined to comment beyond confirming that the board will "continue to cooperate with the government investigation."
