Brad Briner
State Treasurer, North Carolina Department of State Treasurer. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
politicianinvestorexecutivefounder@brad_briner ↗nctreasurer.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
As State Treasurer, Briner oversees North Carolina's financial operations, including the state pension fund and State Health Plan. Before taking office in January 2025, he served as Co-Chief Investment Officer at Willett Advisors and was a co-founder of Morgan Creek Capital Management.
1shows
1appearances
28statements
6resolved
5supported
0contradicted
83%fully supported
4said about them ↓ Everything Brad Briner said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Briner: Sole fiduciary pension models only work if run by Warren Buffett
“Yes, there's more bureaucracy, but without Warren Buffett in the sole fiduciary chair for a hundred years, it probably makes sense to go away from it.”
Briner: North Carolina's state pension ranks 50th out of 50 in performance
“We are 50th best performing out of 50, and so there's a lot of desire to help fix that and move it up the curve that is really appealing to certain people.”
Briner: Team co-investment is an essential alignment tool, not a conflict
“I always find it interesting that people view it as a conflict of interest for the investment team to invest alongside whoever's capital you're investing. Structured correctly, I think that should be essential. You want people to have more than just their psyc…”
Briner: Willett vetted emerging managers via single-deal co-investments before committing
“We would often do a deal alongside a manager before we'd invest in their fund, set up an economic structure, That allowed us the optionality to not go in the fund if we didn't like what we saw. So the economics would stand on their own and then they would fade…”
Briner admits staying largely active in developed public equities was a mistake
“And so we kept going down that road with largely active. And I think that's proven to be a mistake over time.”
Briner: Passive investing relies on a feckless FTC ignoring mega-cap tech
“If you're going to be passive, I think you must argue that the FTC is feckless, which they have been. If you're going to be active, then you probably argue that they are going to get it right this time, or get it different this time, at least. It kind of boils…”
Briner: North Carolina's state finances are consistently and irrationally managed
“In part because it's so irrationally managed, and I'm fascinated by consistent irrational behavior. I always want to understand it and have it explained to me, and the truth is, it's never been explained to me for North Carolina.”
Briner aims to deploy $10B of North Carolina pension cash into credit
“I think we'll start with it's about ten billion dollars of cash right now. Finding places to deploy that in the single B, double B, or mortgage credit spaces where we can make six and a half, seven, and begin to build that portfolio aggressively as we think th…”
Briner: Pensions shouldn't expand PE because top managers don't prioritize them
“This plan's got plenty of capacity to do more private equity. To be honest, I can't figure out why we would. In part, you got to recognize who you are. Pension plans are not at the top of the wishlist for really successful investors generally.”
Briner: Scaling an OCIO flips daily time to 80% client relations
“What changes is when you add many more clients and then all of a sudden your day goes from 80% investing, 20% clients to 20% investing, 80% clients. And now you're in the asset management business.”
Briner: A la carte funds left Morgan Creek exposed in 2008
“It's very tempting. And some firms have pulled that off. Well, I would say it is a material change in your mission to become a purveyor of asset class fund to funds versus an OCIO. And it's hard to do without a lot of people. Doing a lot of different things. W…”
Briner: Scale was the only way to survive post-GFC fee pressure
“The fee pressure, justifiably, given that no one really distinguished themselves during the GFC, was intense. So the only way to deal with intense fee structure is to get to scale.”
Briner: Availability and candor are the essential traits for investment approvers
“And those are the two most essential characteristics, in my view, for people who approve investments, is availability and candor.”
Briner: Scaled investment committees devolve into performative reporting sessions
“These investment committees do become performative at a certain scale, where it's really just, this is already a done deal, and we're just telling you about it.”
Briner: A CIO’s daily role is largely operational, not just investing
“It's largely not an investment job. I think people kind of know that, but I'd take it maybe a degree further. There are many functions that make an investment organization work well, and they are all important. Some of them are important because if you step on…”
Briner: Forced ESG divestments pushed energy secondaries to 20 cents
“Energy secondaries were on sale. Some of them are trading at 20, 25 cents on the dollar because the owners don't care. They must get rid of them, and there are not many natural buyers of them.”
Briner: Overly conservative pension strategies destroy wealth through inflation
“When you are wealthy, which our state is, you can manage your investments very, very conservatively if you want. But what you see in history when people do that, they essentially lose their wealth because they are not keeping up. So in fact, a successful inves…”
Briner: Only Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina retain sole fiduciaries
“47 other states have gone away from this model. The three that are left are Connecticut, New York, and North Carolina.”
Briner plans to restart North Carolina's frozen alternative investment program in 2025
“We'll also begin resuscitating the alternative investment program. So they have been out of the market essentially for a long time. There are things we can do there. It'll be slow because we're not just going to turn on the tap full speed, but we're going to a…”
Briner: Aspiring investors should skip banking and start directly in investing
“He said, well, it turns out the number one reason that people should study Latin was to be better at English. But you know what's even better to learn English? Studying English. So if you want to be an investor in the long run, why don't you go be an investor?”
Briner: Late 1990s endowments were passive retirement posts for alumni
“Many endowments at that time were essentially where alumni went to retire after a successful career, and they put in some stocks and some bonds, and they didn't really do a whole lot, and so that profession was evolving massively at the time, in part the tech …”
Briner: Early endowments heavily backed hedge funds shorting 2001 tech crash
“Many of the endowments were invested heavily in hedge funds that shorted the tech rec in 2001.”
Briner: Secondaries work best when sellers liquidate under non-fundamental pressure
“It's always good setup when you know more than the seller about the assets and when the seller has to do so for the wrong reasons.”
Briner: Interpersonal networking beats brand names for winning deal allocations
“Some firms are able to Sell their capital with their brand name, but most it's interpersonal relationships and going out there and meeting people at conferences and networking and showing up to board meetings and things like that is the best way to sell that c…”
The other half of the tape: Brad Briner's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 4 times in 1 episode across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Ted Seides 4
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Capital Allocators 4
2024 4 mentions in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Brad's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | State Treasurer, North Carolina Department of State Treasurer | 1 | 28 | 83% 5/6 | full record on Capital Allocators → |