Virginia Retirement System Returns 9.9% in Fiscal 2024

The Virginia Retirement System announced a 9.9% return on its investments in fiscal 2024, which ended June 30. Assets of the fund grew to $113.9 billion, a record high for VRS.

Over the past three, five, 10, 15 and 20 years, the fund returned an annualized 5.5%, 8.7%, 7.6%, 8.4% and 6.7%, outperforming its benchmark for each period. While the fund’s 9.9% return in fiscal 2024 outperformed its assumed rate of return of 6.75%, VRS underperformed its benchmark of 11.6%.

“In this environment, even with a strong stock market, VRS continues our philosophy of being very diversified because the future is much more uncertain, and we want to be able to continue to meet our commitment to retirees and beneficiaries,” said Andrew Junkin, CIO of VRS, in a recorded statement.

The fund’s portfolio allocation is divided across public equities (33%), private equity (17%), credit strategies (15.1%), diversifying strategies (3.2%), fixed income (14.7%), real assets (12.4%), private investment partnerships (2.2%), cash (2%) and exposure management (1.1%).

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The fund’s public equities portfolio returned 20.1%, and credit strategies returned 11.7%. Diversifying strategies returned 9.7%. Private investment partnerships returned 8.2%, while private equity and fixed income returned 5.8% and 3.8%, respectively. Real assets were the only asset class in VRS’s portfolio with losses, returning negative 3.2%.

For the 2024 calendar year to date, as of June 30, the fund has returned 5%. VRS manages the investments for more than 800,000 retirees and beneficiaries, who are current and former public employees, including teachers, public workers, law enforcement and firefighters.

“Our work is focused on generating long-term returns while managing risks,” said Junkin. “A highly diversified portfolio is central to our strategy. Through active management, our investment team has added approximately $7.2 billion to the portfolio over the past decade. That’s especially important because investment earnings fund about two-thirds of benefit payments to VRS retirees and beneficiaries.”