VRS Achieves 15.7 Percent Return for Fiscal Year 2014

RICHMOND, Va., Sept. 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Virginia Retirement System (VRS) achieved a 15.7 percent net return on its investment portfolio for fiscal year 2014, ending the year with $66 billion in assets, marking an historic high for the fund. Market gains amounted to $9 billion for the fund this year.

"Fiscal year 2014 was a very good year for the total fund in that the markets performed well and the VRS fund exceeded the benchmark set by the board, which is a mix of market indexes in proportion to the target policy weights by asset class," said VRS Chief Investment Officer Ronald D. Schmitz.

During fiscal year 2014, the major asset classes performed as follows:

• Private equity program returned 23.2 percent
• Public equity program returned 21.6 percent
• Real assets program returned 14.2 percent
• Credit strategies program returned 12.2 percent
• Fixed income program returned 4.9 percent

The portfolio included $28.8 billion in public equity, $12.0 billion in credit strategies, $11.6 billion in fixed income, $7.0 billion in real asset and $5.1 billion in private equity, as of June 30, 2014.

"The Board's investment policy is set to maximize return over the long term, taking into account a reasonable annual risk tolerance.  Over time, the goal is for the policy-targeted return to meet the actuarially assumed rate of return, or 7 percent on an annualized basis.  On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I want to congratulate the investment staff on their ability to far exceed the policy return for the 2014 fiscal year," said VRS Board Chairman Diana F. Cantor.

VRS serves approximately 638,000 members, retirees and beneficiaries.  The active employees include about 145,000 teachers, 105,000 local government employees and about 90,000 state employees.  In addition, VRS provides benefits to more than 181,000 retirees and beneficiaries.  The retirement system ranks as the 21^st largest public or private pension fund in the U.S.

SOURCE Virginia Retirement System