The $1.7 billion North Carolina State Investment Fund is an investment pool consisting of the assets of North Carolina State University's endowment fund, its alumni association and seven associated foundations. Its positive return for the most recent fiscal year falls well above the median of -4.2% among the 36 university endowments whose returns for the period have been tracked by Pensions & Investments as of Tuesday.
NCSIF is only one of seven endowment funds that have reported a positive return thus far. Endowments' low returns have reflected a challenging market environment in the year ended June 30, particularly within public equities and fixed income. For the year ended June 30, the Russell 3000 index and Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond index returned -13.9% and -10.3%, respectively, in sharp contrast to returns of 44.2% and 4.6% for the year ended June 30, 2021.
For the most recent fiscal year, the investment fund's best-performing asset class was real estate, which returned 47.5%, according to a webcast of the university's 2022 State of the Endowment Report. That was followed by energy and natural resources, which returned 42.9%; private equity, which returned 33.1%; private credit, 20%; diversifying strategies, 8.2%; opportunistic fixed income, -6.9%; core fixed income, -8.4%; long/short equity, -11.5%; and public equities, -19.8%.
The investment fund's target allocation is 33% long-biased equities, 22% private equity, 15% long/short equity, 11% fixed income, 6% each diversifying strategies and real estate, 5% energy and natural resources, and 2% cash.
