DALLAS (AP) – An accounting firm’s review of the $3.3 billion Dallas police and fire pension fund has found it overvalued risky real estate investments by tens of millions of dollars.
The review by Deloitte focused on the fund’s real estate holdings in 2013, when it sustained about $96 million in losses on those investments.
The losses were write-downs that followed new appraisals on properties that included luxury homes in Hawaii.
The Dallas Morning News reports (http://bit.ly/1JeVy4f ) the fund valued many of its real estate ventures by what it had invested rather than by appraisals or other methods. This tactic runs counter to accepted standards.
Real estate investments were equivalent to about 50 percent of the fund’s net worth. But among large public pension funds, the median share was less than 5 percent.
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