Arkansas Public Employees’ Retirement System Returns 10.42% in Fiscal 2024

The assets of APERS grew to $11.479 billion.



Investment staff of the Arkansas Public Employees’ Retirement System at the fund’s
Wednesday board meeting shared investment results for the fund, which returned 10.42% in fiscal 2024, underperforming its 11.32% benchmark.

Assets of the fund rose to $11.479 billion at the end of the one-year period that ended June 30. In the fiscal year, assets grew by $1.08 billion, and in the second quarter of calendar 2024, they grew by $111 million.

The fund allocates 39.6% of its portfolio to domestic equities, 24.6% to international equities, 17.3% to fixed income and 3.4% to private markets, a new asset class to the fund, which began allocating to private equity in 2023. Real assets make up 14.1% of the portfolio, while cash makes up 1%.

Over the past three, five, 10 and 20 years, the fund has returned an annualized 2.44%, 7.65%, 6.90% and 7.39%, respectively, underperforming its benchmark in all periods except for the annualized 20-year returns.

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In the last fiscal year, domestic equities were the best-performing asset class in the APERS portfolio, returning 18.49%. The fund’s private markets portfolio, comprised of private equity and hedge funds, returned 24.56%. Fixed income returned 5.48%, while real assets returned negative 6.38%. Cash returned 5.09%.

APERS manages the assets of the Employees Retirement System, as well as the Arkansas Judicial Retirement System, the Arkansas State Police Retirement System and the Arkansas District Judges Retirement System, along with several closed local plans. The plan has more than 75,000 beneficiaries.

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PBGC Grants $31.6M to Newspaper Drivers Pension Plan

The Ohio-based Newspaper Drivers Local 473 Plan will receive funding under the Special Financial Assistance Program.



The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
has approved $31.6 million in Special Financial Assistance Program funds for the Retirement Benefit Plan of the Newspaper and Magazine Drivers, Chauffeurs and Handlers Union Local 473, an Ohio-based pension fund with 804 participants.  

The fund was expected to become insolvent in 2034. According to its Form 5500, the plan had $49 million in assets and a funded status of 79% as of 2022, the last available plan year. 

The Local 473 plan, at risk of insolvency, applied for special financial assistance to avoid having to reduce participants’ benefits levels to the PBGC guarantee level upon insolvency of the plan.  

“Many Americans have worked for decades toward the promise of a well-earned retirement after a lifetime of hard work,” said Julie Su, Acting Secretary of Labor, in a statement announcing the grant. “Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is delivering on that promise for the workers of Local 473 by providing Special Financial Assistance under the American Rescue Plan to ensure that they can retire with the dignity they deserve.”  

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The Special Financial Assistance Program, enacted as a part of the American Rescue Plan in 2021, provides crucial funding to underfunded multiemployer pension plans at risk of insolvency.  

As of August 16, the PBGC has approved $67.7 billion in funds through the Special Finance Assistance Program to plans covering 1.15 million beneficiaries, according to the PBGC.  

Grants are calculated to ensure plan solvency through 2051. 

Pension funds that receive PBGC assistance must monitor the interest resulting from the grant money as separate from other sources of funding. The PBGC requires that at least two-thirds of the money it provides be invested in “high-quality fixed income investments.” The Final Rule on Special Financial Assistance, issued in July 2022, states that the other third can be invested in “return-seeking investments,” such as stocks and stock funds. 

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