Singapore's GIC Private Ltd. Friday reported annualized nominal returns in U.S. dollar terms of 2.6% for the five years through March 31, the close of its latest fiscal year.
In its annual report, GIC also outlined conclusions of what it termed the “second major review” of the sovereign wealth fund's investment framework since its launch in 1981. The review focused on the adoption of a more fine-tuned approach to alpha-beta separation.
The latest rolling five-year results — which still include the market declines from the global financial crisis for the fiscal year through March 2009 — were lower than the GIC's 3.4% annualized nominal returns for the five years through March 31, 2012.
On the basis of real returns, however, the GIC's annualized 4% gains for the 20-year span the sovereign wealth fund calls the appropriate frame of reference for a long-term investor was up from 3.9% for the 20 years through March 2012.
The report doesn't provide details on the GIC's returns for the latest fiscal year.
At the close of its fiscal year, public equities accounted for 46% of the total portfolio, up from 45% the year before.
Fixed income, meanwhile, stood at 21%, up from 17%, while the allocation to “cash and others” saw a corresponding decline to 7% from 11%.
Alternatives slipped one percentage point to 26% of the portfolio. Within that category, private equity and infrastructure, real estate and absolute-return strategies held steady at 11%, 10% and 3% respectively, while natural resources dropped to 2% from 3%.
Among changes in the geographic distribution of the GIC's investments, the U.S. accounted for a 36% chunk of the portfolio — which the GIC for years has described as being well above US$100 billion and market veterans peg between $250 billion and $300 billion — up from 33% the year before.
Japan, meanwhile, accounted for 10% of overall investments, down from 12% the year before, and the U.K. slipped one point to 8%.
