North Carolina Retirement Systems, Raleigh, returned 6.2% in calendar year 2014, matching its benchmark, with the fourth quarter returning 1%, state Treasurer Janet Cowell reported Wednesday.
Assets increased to $88.8 billion as of Dec. 31 from $88.3 billion as of Sept. 30. Assets totaled $86.03 billion at the end of 2013.
Ms. Cowell said in a statement that non-stock assets, including real estate and bonds, helped smooth out an “especially volatile” stock market in the fourth quarter.
North Carolina's public equity portfolio, which represents 44% of assets, gained 0.6% for the quarter and 3.7% for the year. Fixed income, at 29% of assets, gained 2.3% for the quarter and 8.5% for the year. Opportunistic fixed income dropped 2.1% in the quarter, but gained 3.4% for the year. Inflation-sensitive strategies were down 3.9% for the quarter and 0.7% for the year. The two asset classes made up 5.8% and 4.8% of the overall portfolio, respectively.
The strongest performer was non-core real estate, which gained 4.2% for the quarter and 19.4% for the year. Core real estate gained 3.3% for the quarter and 10.4% for the year. Real estate makes up 7.9% of total assets.
Private equity, which represents 4.4% of assets, gained 1.1% for the quarter and 14% for the year. Multistrategy, which makes up 1.8% of assets, returned 0.6% for the quarter and 2.7% for the year.
The remaining assets were in cash.
