Mass PRIM Surpasses $100 Billion in Assets

The Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (Mass PRIM) pension fund has surpassed $100 billion in assets for the first time, as its valuation hit $101 billion as of the end of October.

“This $101 billion milestone is historic in nature,” Massachusetts State Treasurer and MassPRIM Board Chair Deborah Goldberg said in a statement. “It reflects the execution of a pragmatic, focused strategy combined with excellent internal evaluation and analysis capabilities in both up and down markets.”

Mass PRIM said the PRIT Fund—a pooled investment fund that invests the assets of the Massachusetts Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement Systems, and other municipal retirement systems that choose to invest in the PRIT Fund—has more than doubled over the past decade.

In August, MassPRIM reported the highest fiscal year return in the fund’s 35-year history as its portfolio earned 29.5% net of fees for the fiscal year ending June 30 and outperformed its benchmark by 8.9%. That was equal to a net investment gain of $22.1 billion for the fiscal year, or $6.7 billion above the benchmark. The net outflows to pay pension benefits were approximately $1.2 billion. The record topped the fund’s previous best performance of 25.6%, which it returned in its first year in 1986.

Want the latest institutional investment industry news and insights? Sign up for CIO newsletters. 

Six of seven major asset classes outperformed their respective benchmarks for the fiscal year, led by private equity, which returned an astounding 70.5% net of fees, followed by global equities, which returned 42% nets of fees. The fund noted that 60% of its global equities portfolio is passively managed.

“The fiscal year 2021 record performance is a direct result of pragmatic strategies, informed analysis, and deliberate execution,” Goldberg said.

MassPRIM said its Project SAVE initiatives now top $250 million annually and have allowed the fund to invest more heavily in the highest performing—albeit more expensive—private investments without raising the overall risk and cost profile of the fund.

The PRIT fund joins the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) Trust Fund as pensions with more than $100 billion in assets. The Virginia fund exceeded the $100 billion threshold for the first time this summer as its investment portfolio returned 27.5% net of fees for fiscal year 2021, which ended June 30, to reach approximately $101.8 billion in assets.

Little-Known RhumbLine Advisers in Line for $1 Billion PRIM Allocation

Local Pension Plans Benefited from Shifting Money to MassPRIM, Report Says

Tags: Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (MassPRIM), Pension Funds, PRIT Fund

The C$114 billion (US$89 billion) Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System (OMERS) has joined a growing number of institutional investors pledging to make their portfolios net-zero of greenhouse gas emissions. The Canadian pension fund said it aims to hit that target by 2050.

OMERS, which has already pledged to reduce the carbon intensity of its total portfolio by 20% by 2025, in line with the Paris Agreement, said it currently owns more than C$18 billion in green assets, based on the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) Green Bond Principles.

“As investors, we play an important role in working with our portfolio companies and making capital allocation decisions during the transition to a lower-carbon economy,” OMERS CIO Satish Rai said in a statement. “We believe that integrating ESG [environmental, social, and governance] factors into our investment approach is a more holistic way of assessing both value drivers and risk to deliver long-term, stable returns to our members.”

OMERS said it will follow the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to reach its net-zero goal. TCFD is a global standard that promotes climate-related disclosures by corporations and other entities. Its framework recommends making public details about governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets that are related to climate change.

The pension fund has formed a climate risk working group, which is comprised of risk professionals from each investment team and representatives from OMERS’ sustainable investing committee. The mandate of the group includes developing a framework to evaluate climate risk within the portfolio, as well as measuring the portfolio’s overall carbon footprint.

OMERS said it analyzes potential impacts to value or to risk—both positive and negative—where climate change impacts are considered material to a proposed investment. It also said that each of its asset classes has developed assessment procedures that are tailored to its investing approaches and strategies, and that it uses its influence to address climate change risks through engagement and proxy voting activities.

Want the latest institutional investment industry news and insights? Sign up for CIO newsletters. 

In October, fellow Canadian pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) announced a new climate change strategy that it will use as a road map to achieve a net-zero portfolio by 2050. And in January, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (OTPPB) also pledged to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.