Illinois TRS earns 12.6% rate of investment return for fiscal year 2017

The Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois investments has generated a positive 12.6 percent rate of return, net of fees, during fiscal year 2017, a return that exceeded the system’s custom investment benchmark of 11.4 percent.

TRS ended fiscal year 2017 on June 30 with $49.4 billion in assets. Gross of fees, the TRS return for fiscal year 2017 was 13.3 percent. Total investment income, net of fees, was $5.5 billion. The 30-year investment return for TRS currently is 8.1 percent, net of fees, which exceeds the system’s long-term investment goal of 7 percent.

“Risk management is critical,” said TRS executive director Dick Ingram, “because we know we can’t invest our way out of our funding shortfall. The TRS unfunded liability was created by seven decades of inadequate funding by state government and our future sustainability relies on consistent state funding to pay down this debt.”

While the System’s funded status improved modestl