State and locally run retirement systems are increasingly turning to alternative and complex investments to help boost returns but these decisions may not be the best for all stakeholders involved, according to a new report from The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The report, which is the latest in a series of reports from Pew on the topic, uses data from the 73 largest state-sponsored pension funds, which collectively have assets under management of over $2.8 trillion (about 95 percent of all state pension fund investments).
The use of alternative investment by pension funds varies widely across the industry. The use of alternative investments for the 73 largest public funds analyzed by Pew within its report varies from 0 to over 50% of fund portfolios. There are also vast differences in returns and returns reporting.
State Pension Funds Take On More Risk, Higher Fees For Worse Returns
For the 41 largest state funds that can be clearly compared against target returns—those reporting performance after accounting for management fees and on a fiscal year basis— the average annual target return in 2015 was 7.7 %. Actual annualized returns over ten years, however, averaged 6.6 % and ranged from 4.7 % to 8.1 % a year. Only one of the 41 (and two of all 73 funds) exceeded their target return in 2015.
At the same time, the majority of funds report on the basis of a fiscal year ending June 30 and include 10-year performance returns minus the fees paid to investment managers, although 12 funds report on a different period and more than a third provide ten year returns only “gross of fees.”
States also vary in whether they include performance-based fees for certain investments, known as carried interest, for private equity. States that disclose the cost of carried interest report higher fees than states that do not.
Over the past three decades, public pension funds have increasingly relied on more complex investments to reduce volatility and improve returns. A difference of just one percentage point in annual returns on the $3.6 trillion managed by the US pension industry equates to a $36 billion impact on pension assets.
