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.
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.
Related Stories:
STRS Ohio Returns 10.53% in Fiscal 2024
Virginia Retirement System Returns 9.9% in Fiscal 2024
Rhode Island Pension Returns 10.47% in Fiscal 2024
Tags: APERS, Arkansas, Arkansas Public Employees’ Retirement System, Pensions