Oklahoma Teachers chalks up 33% return for fiscal year

Oklahoma Teachers' Retirement System, Oklahoma City, posted a net return of 33% for the fiscal year ended June 30, said Sarah Green, executive director of the $22 billion pension fund, in an email.

The record return exceeds the pension fund's benchmark return of 31.3% and the fund's 7% assumed rate of return.

The pension fund returned a net 1.3% in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2020.

The Oklahoma pension fund attributed the high performance to "extraordinary public equity market gains and an overweight to the asset class" in a report distributed at a board meeting July 21. "The domestic small-cap overweight was a significant contributor to outperforming the domestic equity benchmark," the report said.

The pension fund also edged past benchmark returns for the five- and 10-year periods ended June 30, earning a five-year annualized net return of 12.16% and a 10-year annualized net return of 9.97%. The benchmark returns for the respective periods were 12.12% and 9.86%.

However, for the three years ended June 30, the pension fund returned a net annualized 12.1%, below its benchmark return of 13.3%.

For the year ended June 30, the pension fund's best-performing asset class was U.S. equity, which returned a net 48.6%; followed by private equity/private capital at 46.8%; international equity, 40.4%); fixed income, 3.3%; and real estate, 1.2%.

As of June 30, the pension fund's actual allocation was 46.4% U.S. equity, 20.7% fixed income, 17.8% international equity, 8.9% private equity/private capital, 5.7% real estate, and the rest in cash. Its target allocation is 43.5% U.S. equity, 22% fixed income, 19% international equity, 9% real estate and 6.5% private equity/private capital.