In spite of the current market mayhem, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which has a $14 billion deficit, is pressing ahead with a controversial move to try to close that gap by cutting its allocation to bonds from 72 percent to 45 percent and putting the balance into private and public equities and real estate. On September 15 it hired its first CIO, John Greenberg , 50, who spent the past 12 years at the State Retirement and Pension System of Maryland, most recently as managing director for public markets. PBGC, a government agency that insures corporate pension plans, controlled assets of $62.6 billion as of September 2007, the latest available data. Director Charles Millard had hoped to have a new CIO by the end of June, but the search took longer. One factor: the $165,000 salary, which is about half what CIOs of the biggest public pension funds earn. “I get paid a lot more than plenty of other hardworking people,” says Greenberg. “I don’t have a lot to complain about.”
