Retirement System Investment Performance

At a glance

Based on auto-generated captions; names and numbers may be misheard.

What: monthly review of the city's Employees' Retirement System and trust funds by the consultant, covering September 2026 results.
Where it stands: the system returned about 8.2 percent year to date (after about minus 1.9 percent in September), worth about 677.3 million dollars at September 30, down from about 690 million, with net contributions of about minus 7.9 million dollars (pension payroll). Equities were 67.4 percent of the portfolio (target 68), fixed income 17.7 percent (target 22), and cash 6.6 percent, above target; the finance department is working to redeploy the cash.
Next: the consultant will report on the small- and mid-cap manager Robeco's three- and five-year underperformance versus the index at the next meeting, with attribution, and will update last year's analysis of active versus index management.

The consultant said bond yields rose in September (inflation data tied to the war in Iran, AI-investment borrowing worries, a stronger second-quarter GDP revision to 2.2 percent) and the Fed raised rates; the aggregate bond index fell about 2.6 percent in the month. Hedge funds did their job of cushioning the downside.
Replacing the Renaissance international equity manager will take longer because a re-read of the investment policy statement means an RFP is required.
The trust funds (including the Dexter donation trust) performed about as expected, slightly behind their plan index; no rebalancing was recommended. A rebalancing item was continued to the next meeting.

2026-10-22 - Board of Investment Commissioners - Performance reports for the retirement system and trusts accepted by voice vote; a commissioner questioned Robeco's results.
2026-09-24 - Board of Investment Commissioners - Consultant reported $698.8 million and 10.3% year-to-date return trailing benchmark; recommending terminating the Renaissance hedge fund over volatility and transparency; reports accepted and rebalancing item continued.
2026-08-27 - Board of Investment Commissioners - Consultant reviewed July results (bonds and stocks down in July on Iran-related energy and inflation worries); retirement and trust reports approved by voice vote, no rebalancing recommended (from auto-captions).
2026-07-23 - Board of Investment Commissioners - Consultants reported fiscal-year return of about 14.9% (trailing benchmark, hedge fund restructuring due in September) and assets near $652 million; trust funds up over 21% for the year; both reports approved by voice vote, rebalancing continued (from auto-captions).