The Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management board reported a 3.7% gain for the first quarter ended March 31, lifting the value of the state's Pension Reserves Investment Trust fund to $94.7 billion.
The second consecutive quarter of gains, building on a 4.0% bounce for the three months ended Dec. 31, followed a string of declines over the first nine months of 2022, as surging inflation and aggressive central bank tightening brought a decade of extraordinary monetary policy support for markets to an abrupt end.
At a regularly scheduled meeting of PRIM's investment committee Tuesday, Michael Trotsky, PRIM's executive director and CIO, said the asset classes that suffered the worst of last year's selloff led the latest rebound, with the fund's U.S. long bond exposures rising 9.5% while developed international equity and U.S. large cap equity posted respective gains of 8.5% and 7.6%.
For the 12 months through March 31, the PRIT fund remained down 5.5%, with only timberland, private debt, "other credit opportunities," bank loans and short-term fixed income in positive territory.
Still, the volatility seen since the start of 2022 offers opportunities for attractive long-term investments, said Mr. Trotsky, noting that PRIM's team has been "very busy," making almost $6 billion in new deployments over that time.
At the meeting, Mr Trotsky announced the appointment of Veena Ramani as head of stewardship, a new position at PRIM.
Ms. Ramani comes to the state pension fund from FCLTGlobal, an independent, non-profit organization launched — according to its website — to "focus capital on the long term to support a sustainable and prosperous economy," where she served as director of research.
