Wilshire: In Q2, Corporate Plans Rank as Top Performers

(August 8, 2011) — While corporate funds achieved the highest returns in the second quarter among institutional master trusts in the Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service (TUCS), public funds earned the top spot of the year ended June 30.

Wilshire’s TUCS — which includes about 900 plans with combined assets of $2.92 trillion — showed that in Q2, corporate funds returned a median 1.27%. For the year ended June 30, public funds earned a median 21.11%, outpacing the median return of 20.41% earned by corporate funds.

Meanwhile, foundations and endowments returned a median 19.99% for the year, followed by Taft-Hartley with 19.94%.

Of the four groups, Wilshire found that corporate funds had the highest median allocation to both equities and bonds with a 56.66% median allocation tower equities and and a 34.46% allocation toward fixed-income.

In June, the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report revealed that corporate defined benefit and defined contribution plans enjoyed an increase in assets amid strong equity returns as of March 31. The report showed that corporate retirement plans in the United States reached combined assets of $6.2 trillion as of March 31.

Fueled largely by strong equity returns for both defined benefit and defined contribution plans, the total represented a 2.6% increase from the fourth quarter of 2010. As of March 31, while corporate defined benefit plan assets totaled $2.3 trillion, up 2.5% from the previous quarter, total assets in corporate defined contribution plans were roughly $4 trillion, up 2.7%. DC plans reached their highest level in the past five years of reporting.