Ohio School Employees Retirement System, Columbus, returned a net -0.5% for the fiscal year ended June 30.
The $17.8 billion pension fund's net return for the period was well above the benchmark return of -3.6%, spokesman Tim Barbour said in an email.
For the three and 10 years ended June 30, the pension fund returned an annualized net 9.1% and 9.1%, respectively, above their respective benchmarks of 7.4% and 8.1%.
SERS had returned a net 26.8% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021.
The latest fiscal-year returns for the pension fund reflect a challenging return environment for public equities and fixed income during the past year. 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.
Mr. Barbour said global equity and fixed income posted net returns of -15.9% and -10.7%, respectively, for the fiscal year ended June 30. The two asset classes comprised about 54% of the total fund compared with a combined target of 64%, he said.
The pension fund benefited from the excellent performance of private equity and real assets, which chalked up net returns of 34.4% and 24.5%, respectively, for the fiscal year ended June 30.
Mr. Barbour said the combined allocation of those two asset classes made up about 32% of total pension fund assets.
Complete asset allocation and benchmark information is not yet available, he said.
