March 19 (Bloomberg) -- New Jersey’s public-pension fund, the 12th-largest in the U.S., returned 10.7 percent in the first seven months of the fiscal year as stocks surged.
The fund, with a market value of $76.5 billion, reported today that global-growth assets performed best, gaining 15.1 percent from July 1 to Feb. 28. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of U.S. stocks rose 30 percent in 2013, ending the year at an all-time high.
New Jersey’s pension, with 769,000 active and retired employees, gained 2.67 percent for February and 12.8 percent in the calendar year. The data exclude a fund for police and firefighter mortgages that’s reported on a lagging basis. Returns for commodities, Treasuries and Treasury inflation- protected bonds, or TIPS, disappointed, according to a report from the state Treasury’s investment division.
Governor Chris Christie, a 51-year-old Republican who began a second term in January, said last month that the pension was underfunded by $52 billion after a decade of expanded benefits and missed payments. His proposed $34.4 billion budget for fiscal 2015 includes a record $2.25 billion pension payment.
Christie has said public-employee unions must agree to changes in their retirement and health plans because a 2011 overhaul didn’t go far enough to contain costs.
Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
