The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) said its investments brought a preliminary 2.4 percent net return for for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015.
CalPERS assets at the end of the fiscal year stood at more than $301 billion.
Although longer-term returns—for the past three years and the past five years—have brought returns of 10.9 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively, its assumed annual rate of return is 7.5 percent.
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In addition, while the three- and five-year returns exceeded policy benchmarks by 59 and 34 basis points, respectively, on a strictly annual basis returns for the last fiscal year lagged the benchmark by 9 points.
The returns mark the first time since 2007 that CalPERS has beat its three- and five-year benchmarks.
Real estate, which makes up about 10 percent of the portfolio as of June 30, was a big contributor to the return results. Income-generating real estate investments such as office, industrial and retail assets brought in approximately 13.5 percent and outperformed fund's real estate benchmark by more than 114 basis points.
Global equity, which as of June 30 makes up about 54 percent of the fund, brought in 1 percent, against its benchmark of 1.3 percent. According to CalPERs, some of the factors in that return for global equity were the strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus most foreign currencies and challenging emerging market local returns.
Fixed income, the second largest asset class in the fund at 18 percent, brought in returns of 1.3 percent, beating its benchmark by 93 basis points.
Private equity didn't do as well, relatively speaking. Although this asset class, which made up approximately 9 percent of the fund as of June 30, brought in strong absolute returns for the fiscal year, earning 8.9 percent, it still underperformed its benchmark by 221 basis points.
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