Name David Bronner Role Businessman | Education University of Alabama | |
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Full Name David George Bronner Born January 22, 1945 (age 79) ( 1945-01-22 ) Occupation CEO Retirement Systems of Alabama Residence Montgomery, Alabama, United States | ||
David George Bronner (born January 22, 1945) is an American businessman. He is best known as the head of Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA), the pension fund for employees of the State of Alabama.
Life and career
Bronner was born in Cresco, Iowa, the son of George David and Marge Bronner. He received his elementary and high school education in Austin, Minnesota. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees at Mankato State University (now Minnesota State University, Mankato), in Mankato, Minnesota. From 1967 to 1969, Bronner was an instructor in the School of Business and Finance at Mankato State. He then entered the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, where he earned a law degree in 1971 and a Ph.D. in 1972.
After teaching in various graduate schools of Education and Business, he was appointed as assistant dean of the Law School at the University of Alabama. Shortly thereafter, Bronner took his present job with RSA in 1973. At that time RSA had approximately $500 million of funds and was owed $1.5 billion by the state. By the end of 2014, RSA had amassed over $34 billion in investments making RSA the 115th largest public pension fund in the world.
The growth in RSA’s asset base has included a number of highly-public developments and acquisitions. To those in Alabama, the most visible RSA development is the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, which features eleven golf course complexes (26 courses) throughout the state and helped attract considerable tourist revenue (from $1.8 billion to nearly $12 billion in tourism revenue), and out-of-state publicity. Bronner directed the fund to purchase a large interest in US Airways, which resulted in his serving briefly as the airline’s chairman, but ultimately in a loss of RSA’s $150 million investment, (Warren Buffett made the same mistake on US Airways). RSA has also been a major backer of Community Newspaper Holdings, a chain of over 100 small-market newspapers based in Montgomery, Alabama. The RSA Battle House Tower in Mobile, Alabama is another of Bronner’s developments. He also directed the RSA to purchase Raycom Media, also based in Montgomery, now the fifth largest owner of local television stations with over 59 in the nation. In addition, RSA owns 55 Water Street located in New York City, the largest building in New York City and the second largest office building in America.
The RSA has been on a very positive roll since the near depression of 2008-09. The investment performance on all assets was 12.13% for TRS and 12.02% for ERS during fiscal year 2014. The last three-year-average for TRS was 15.09% and 14.85% for ERS. That placed the RSA in the top 13th percentile of the State Street Public Funds Universe (70 funds over $1 billion) for both the one-year and three-year period. In addition, the RSA is in the top 25% over the last five years.