Bill Richardson’s office says the governor wasn’t aware of any fees investment companies doing business with the state paid to Marc Correra — or anyone else for that matter.
“The state did not pay these fees, and the governor was not informed of any fees paid by private fund managers to third-party marketers,” Richardson spokesman Gilbert Gallegos wrote in an e-mail. “Those were private transactions, which were only disclosed after the state asked for more information about the fees from the fund managers who paid them.”
Earlier this week, I wrote that a couple of scandals might intersect in the instance of Correra. He shared in more than $11 million in finders’ fees as a third-party marketer for financial companies that won business with the State Investment Council (SIC) and another $4.2 million in fees that came from contracts with the Educational Retirement Board (ERB).
That may include as much as $2 million he earned from a controversial investment deal in which the state lost $90 million — a deal that is the subject of the pay-to-play lawsuit brought by Frank Foy on behalf of the state.
Gallegos, while insisting the governor didn’t know about the fees, noted that the use of third-party marketers is “legal and commonplace” in the industry. Still, he noted that Richardson “nevertheless moved to ban the state from investing in funds that utilize the marketers” and directed the SIC and ERB to fire a company at the center of one of the investment scandals plaguing state government.
GOP: Guv’s action ‘too little, too late’
Meanwhile, the Republican Party of New Mexico said in a news release that Richardson’s attempt to restore confidence in state government in the face of the scandals is “too little, too late” because of the revelation that Correra profited from at least a third of all private equity investments made in the last three years by the ERB.
Correra is the son of a Richardson confidant.
“As head of the SIC, Governor Richardson surely was aware of the existence of third-party payments,” Harvey Yates Jr., the GOP chairman, said in the release. “Likewise, he surely was aware that his friend’s son was collecting substantial finder’s fees from companies vying to invest state funds.”
“The governor’s 11th-hour attempt to exculpate himself by temporarily shutting down payments to third parties is remarkable,” Yates said. “Richardson owes the people of New Mexico an explanation as to why these third-party payments were necessary and what role these payments played in the SIC’s decision-making process.”
Yates called for Richardson to suspend or fire State Investment Officer Gary Bland, appoint a committee to investigate and supervise the SIC and voluntarily relinquish his control over the SIC “pending the results of an investigation into these payouts.”