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Thursday, March 6, 1997
Earlysville banker chairman of fund
BY JEFF E. SCHAPIRO
Times-Dispatch Staff Writer
VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEM
Gov. George Allen yesterday selected his former next-door neighbor to replace his ex-campaign treasurer as chairman of the $24 billion state pension fund.
Edwin T. Burton III of Earlysville, an investment banker and economics professor at the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce, succeeds leveraged-buyout specialist James C. Wheat III of Richmond. As chairman of the board of trustees of the Virginia Retirement System, Burton said, he expects "nothing but a continuation of the direction we've been headed for the past three years."
Since a new board was installed in 1994, under reforms pressed by the General Assembly, VRS has seen explosive growth in its portfolio and sold its most controversial holding, RF&P Corp., a railroad turned real estate development firm.
An affable Texan who once ran his family's oil business, Burton guided the sale of RF&P - along with fellow trustee Charles B. Walker of Hanover, an Ethyl Corp. executive - to a prestigious New York investment house for nearly $600 million.
Burton has been a vocal advocate of a politically sensitive proposal allowing state employees to tailor their own pensions through a so-called defined-contribution program. Currently, state pensions are managed solely by VRS.
Perhaps the most contrarian member of the VRS board, Burton was first named a trustee by the governor in 1994, when Wheat, treasurer of Allen's gubernatorial campaign, was installed as chairman. Wheat will remain on the nine-member board of trustees, but - having just been tapped by Allen for the U.Va. board of visitors - is relinquishing the chairmanship to Burton. Besides, said Allen spokesman Ken Stroupe, the governor believes it appropriate to rotate the chairmanship.
Burton, active in Republican politics, lives on a farm adjacent to Allen's homestead outside Charlottesville. Allen shot one of his television commercials for the 1993 campaign on Burton's property.
Allen yesterday also announced the reappointment to the VRS board of R. William Bayliss III of Winchester. Bayliss, a stockbroker, and Allen were college friends at U.Va.
VRS closed 1996 with a profit of nearly $4 billion and paid out a record $891 million in benefits to 87,000 retired local and state employees. With $3.9 billion in earnings last year, thanks largely to the bull market in stocks, VRS grew from $20 billion to $23.9 billion, making it the 30th largest pension system in the nation.
It had been No. 32 among public and private retirement funds.