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New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board Pension
The New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board Pension was founded in 1956 as a single-employer defined benefit plan covering the full-time workforce of the Sewerage...
New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board Pension
The New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board Pension was founded in 1956 as a single-employer defined benefit plan covering the full-time workforce of the Sewerage and Water Board. Its governance sits with a board of trustees led by the sitting mayor of New Orleans — currently LaToya Cantrell — and includes a dedicated pension committee chaired by Joseph Peychaud. The plan is a component of the municipal fabric, providing retirement, death, and disability benefits exclusively to the employees who maintain one of America's oldest urban water systems. An Altss estimate places the plan's assets near $230M, a pool small enough to move via fund commitments and direct co-investments, yet shaped by a board with unusual operational proximity to hard assets. The pension's portfolio lists real estate and infrastructure composites alongside physical industrial properties, and the staff pays benefits from the Pension Trust Fund Portfolio — a generic label that belies the tie to a utility that owns a power substation and three water plants. While the pension publishes no detailed asset-allocation study, its aligned interests with the Board of Liquidation City Debt and its sponsor's own capital-intensive mission suggest an overweight to real assets uncommon for a plan its size. Joseph Peychaud chairs the pension committee for a board that has cycled through executive leadership: Ghassan Korban served as Executive Director before Randy E. Hayman assumed the post in 2025. The plan participates in the Louisiana Public Employees' Retirement Systems Association, linking it to statewide peers, and its research counterparty list — including Al Rajhi Capital and CardinalStone, accessed through Avior Capital Markets US — hints at a buyout and fund-of-funds posture that stretches beyond Louisiana borders. No personnel count is publicly available. The fund's structural differentiator isn't scale or sourcing machinery — it's the governance overlap with a municipal utility that physically owns the power stations, water plants, and underground networks that generate the payroll deductions funding the plan. That alignment places the pension inside the same operational reality as its infrastructure investments, a posture few public plans share.
General information
Firm type
Pension Fund
Year founded
1956
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
New Orleans
Corporate office
New Orleans, LA, United States
Principals
LaToya Cantrell
Mayor of New Orleans and President of the Board of Trustees
Randy E. Hayman
Executive Director of the Sewerage and Water Board
Joseph Peychaud
Chair of the Pension Committee
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
How does the fund source and manage its investment decisions?
The pension is overseen by a Board of Trustees with the mayor as president and a pension committee chaired by Joseph Peychaud. The plan lists a strategy of buyout and fund-of-funds, indicating a mix of externally managed fund commitments and direct asset oversight. Access to foreign research is facilitated through a relationship with Avior Capital Markets US, LLC, which is a FINRA-registered broker-dealer.
Are the water plants and other infrastructure holdings directly owned by the pension fund or by the Sewerage and Water Board?
The Algiers and Carrollton water plants and the Power Complex Substation are recorded as assets within the plan's research profile, described as industrial holdings. This suggests they are treated as portfolio assets linked to the pension, but the precise legal ownership structure between the employer and the pension fund is not publicly detailed by the board.
What types of external fund commitments does the plan make?
The plan's stated strategy includes both buyout and fund-of-funds commitments. Foreign research distribution relationships with entities like Al Rajhi Capital and CardinalStone suggest some level of engagement with international managers, though specific general partner names and commitment sizes are not publicly disclosed by the fund.
How is the pension fund related to the City of New Orleans' broader debt administration?
The pension's sponsoring employer is the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans, whose bonded debt is administered by the Board of Liquidation City Debt. This links the plan's ecosystem directly to the city's municipal credit operations, though the pension trust fund portfolio is a distinct entity.
Is the fund's performance or actuarial funding status publicly available?
The fund does not publish its full actuarial reports or quarterly performance data on its own website. As a member of the Louisiana Public Employees' Retirement Systems Association (LAPERS), its reporting likely follows state-level public records standards, but detailed financials were not retrieved in this analysis.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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