Ohio SERS reports positive return on global real assets portfolio

The School Employees Retirement System (SERS) of Ohio has reported a 16.91 percent return on its global real assets portfolio for calendar year 2022, driven by strong real estate markets. The portfolio also exceeded the policy benchmark for the three-, five-, and 10-year periods.

The global real assets portfolio is composed of private real estate (core and noncore strategies), public real estate and infrastructure. The portfolio aims to provide stable income from tangible assets, be a partial inflation hedge over the long term and provide low correlation to equities. Its objective is to provide returns exceeding the NCREIF Property Index (NPI), and its target allocation is 17 percent of the total fund with a range of 14 percent to 22 percent.

Private real estate remains the largest exposure at 72 percent, which increased slightly during the past year. The real estate portion of the portfolio consists mainly of core strategies (64 percent) with noncore strategies making