Leaked emails, first reported by local outlet The Alaska Landmine, suggest APFC leadership believes Rubenstein may have sought to unduly influence investment decisions and personnel matters.

Rubenstein is co-founder and managing partner of Manna Tree Partners, a growth equity firm based in Vail, Colorado, with around $570 million of assets under management. She was appointed to the Alaska Permanent Fund Board of Trustees in 2022 and elected vice chair in 2023.

Earlier this year, APFC leadership internally accused Rubenstein of attempting to steer state assets to friends and family members through an effort to shift more of the fund’s portfolio into alternative assets—even as the fund had formally decided to cut its exposure to the asset class. Despite that directive, documents show Rubenstein had repeatedly pushed for the build-out of a dedicated private credit team.

In a January email, Marcus Frampton, chief investment officer for APFC, criticized a lack of detail in Rubenstein’s private credit proposal before noting that “the more serious topic, and perhaps more uncomfortable to address, are Trustee Rubenstein’s conflicts of interest in the private credit space.”

“As we all know, she has made dozens upon dozens of investment manager referrals in her 18 months on the APFC board. Many of these have been in the private credit space, and my team has declined to pursue all of them,” he added.

Frampton went on to specifically name TCW, Churchill Asset Management, and Goldman Sachs as particularly troublesome, given their respective ties to both Carlyle and Manna Tree, as well as the “emphatic pitch” made by Rubenstein on their behalf.

A separate email details Rubenstein’s efforts to arrange meetings between APFC staff and outside managers.

In one instance, Allen Waldrop, APFC director of private equity investments, said that Rubenstein had organized an unplanned meeting in London last November between her father and a representative from the fund.

“There was no intention to spend any broader time with Carlyle in advance,” noted Waldrop.

“Ellie [Gabrielle Rubenstein] arranged a meeting between Catherine and DMR [David Rubenstein] and coordinated with Catherine directly. That was not something we discussed in advance, nor did we plan when we arranged the trip,” he continued.

The meeting in question led to a staffing dispute in which Rubenstein attempted to secure the firing of the APFC representative in attendance, a junior analyst named Catherine Hatch.

Rubenstein relayed that Hatch’s interaction with her father had left him “unimpressed” and told Frampton that Hatch should be terminated. In the same conversation, Rubenstein also allegedly called for the replacement of Tim Andreyka, APFC director of investments for real estate assets.

After Frampton shared the termination request internally, Waldrop responded, “Ellie knows Catherine and knows that she is an analyst with limited professional experience (which should be obvious because she is an analyst) and arranged the meeting anyway. Stating the obvious, but I would not expect one of the pioneers of the buyout market, who is also one of the wealthiest people in the US, to be impressed with an analyst with a couple year’s experience. I would not expect him to be impressed with me, either. Our goal when we meet firms is not to impress them.”

Speaking to The Financial Times, Rubenstein spokesman Chris Ullman acknowledged she made a series of external asset manager referrals to APFC staff but maintained she followed protocols and did not exert improper pressure. "She played no role in investment decisions, and no capital was deployed to those investment firms," Mr. Ullman stated. He also denied she set up the meeting with her father or asked to have anyone fired.

In response to the leaks, Rubenstein has sought to ban fund employees from forwarding internal emails.

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The leaked communications have renewed compliance and oversight concerns at the fund, which manages assets accumulated from Alaska's oil resources and provides critical funding for state infrastructure and services.

On Wednesday, Alaska State Representative Cliff Groh called for a legislative hearing to investigate the allegations, which he characterized as "disturbing."

APFC adviser John Skjervem, CIO of Utah Retirement System, said that he felt recent events "had really jeopardized the sanctity of the corporation."

In 2022, the fund made headlines when the APFC board voted to fire its former chief executive, Angela Rodell, in response to disagreements over her management of the organization. In early 2023, the fund’s governance committee commissioned an outside review of its internal policies from Funston Advisory Services.

Rubenstein’s appointment had also received criticism prior to this month’s leaked communications. Local media repeatedly questioned APFC’s relationship with Carlyle, which manages around $800 million of the fund’s money, in relation to state ethics and disclosure laws that bar APFC board members from taking official action on matters in which they or their families have a personal or financial interest.

In an investigation of her appointment, The Anchorage Daily News reported that Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy attended an hour-long meeting with Gabrielle Rubenstein and David Rubenstein at a Houston energy conference in early March of 2022.

Three days later, Dunleavy hosted Gabrielle Rubenstein for a private dinner meeting in Juneau. At the end of March, Dunleavy flew to Colorado for a conference hosted by Rubenstein’s Manna Tree, in which David Rubenstein also participated.

Dunleavy then appointed Rubenstein in July after the retirement of her predecessor was publicly announced.

In a panel discussion last year at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Rubenstein touched on the APFC board’s decision to lower its private equity allocation: “Boy, was my father not impressed.”

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In one email, chief investment officer Frampton shared his concerns with Sebastian Vadakumcherry, APFC’s chief risk and compliance officer, writing, “I would put it out there that a reasonable person looking at the facts here might question whether she has some conflicts that are clouding the independence of her positions here.”

“A reasonable person also might ask the question of whether she would be more enthusiastic about APFC personnel handling private credit investments had we elected to invest in TCW, Churchill, or Goldman Sachs private credit funds. A reasonable person might wonder if her current position is some sort of retaliation for rebuffing these investment referrals,” he added.