Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System, Des Moines, returned 3.96% on its investments for the fiscal year ended June 30, outperforming the 3.51% return of its custom benchmark, IPERS reported Tuesday.
For the previous fiscal year ended June 30, 2014, IPERS returned 15.88%, also outpacing its custom benchmark's return, which was 15.36%.
Investments earnings of the pension fund, whose assets totaled $28.4 billion as of June 30, pay 70% of the IPERS benefit payments, which totaled $1.7 billion in the last fiscal year, ended June 30, 2014, said a news release about the performance.
“While this year's investment performance fell short of our actuarial return assumption of 7.5%, it's important to remember IPERS' focus is long term — 30 to 50 years out — in analyzing the fund's performance,” CEO Donna M. Mueller said in the news release. “For IPERS, a more significant measurement is our 30-year annualized return, which is 9.38%.” The IPERS 30-year return outperformed its custom benchmark return of 8.89% for the same period.
Individual asset class returns for the 12-month period were not provided.
“The next big indicator of IPERS' financial health will come from the annual actuarial valuation, due in December,” Ms. Mueller said.
Cavanaugh Macdonald Consulting, IPERS' actuary, will present the 2015 actuarial valuation findings at the Dec. 2 board meeting with an updated funded status. The pension plan's actuarial funding ratio was 82.7% as of June 30, 2014.
Judy Akre, IPERS director of communications, provided the comparison benchmark returns.
