VRS achieves positive return on investments

The Virginia Retirement System (VRS) has achieved a 1.4 percent return on its investment portfolio for fiscal year 2020.

The pension fund ended the fiscal year with a total of $81.6 billion in the VRS Trust Fund and $11.2 billion in its real assets portfolio.

“During these challenging times with extreme market volatility, the fund performed well overall, especially the fixed income portfolio,” said Ronald Schmitz, CIO. “Although we did not achieve the projected rate of return for the one-year period, the fund did exceed the custom benchmark for this period, along with the benchmarks for the three-, five- and 10-year periods.”

The board decreased its public equity exposure earlier in the year, which saved transaction costs and supported the long-term strategy of increasing exposure to private markets.

In addition, real assets clocked a 1.0 percent return during fiscal year 2020.