Kentucky Public Pensions Authority, Frankfort, reported fiscal-year returns for the five state pension funds it oversees ranging from 9.5% to 11.3% in performance reports posted on its website.
For the fiscal year ended June 30, the two top-performing pension funds were the $3.4 billion County Employees' Retirement System (Hazardous), which returned a net 11.7% (below its 14.1% benchmark), and the $9.6 billion County Employees' Retirement System (Non-Hazardous), which returned a net 11.6% (also below the same 14.1% benchmark).
Following that were the $1 billion Employees' Retirement System (Hazardous), which returned a net 11.1% (below its 12.4% benchmark); the $651 million State Police Retirement System, a net 9.6% (10.1%); and the $4.2 billion Employees' Retirement System (Non-Hazardous), 9.5% (10.1%).
For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2023, the five pension funds had returned between 7% and 10.3%, net of fees.
For the most recent fiscal year, despite missing their benchmarks, three of the state’s five pension funds exceeded the median return of 9.9% among the 60 U.S. public pension funds whose fiscal-year returns have been tracked by Pensions & Investments as of Sept. 10.
The five Kentucky pension funds each have their own asset allocation. The performance report provided returns by asset class for the combined assets of the five pension funds.
The top performer was public equities, which returned a net 17% for the fiscal year ended June 30 (below its benchmark of 19.4%); followed by real return, which returned a net 14.2% (above its 6.3% benchmark); specialty credit, at a net 11.9% (above its 10.8% benchmark); cash, 5.3% (5.6%); core fixed income, 5.1% (2.6%); private equity, 3.8% (32.3%); and real estate, -9.9% (-12%).
