Three of Connecticut’s major public pension funds in the Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds (CRPTF) reported returns exceeding 13% for the year ended Jan. 31, 2017.



The Teachers Retirement Fund returned 13.57%, the Connecticut State Employees Retirement Fund returned 13.37%, and the Municipal Employees Retirement Fund returned 13.29%. For all three funds, the top-performing asset classes were emerging markets and equities.



“These investment gains can help to strengthen the plan’s solvency,” Connecticut state Treasurer Denise Nappier was reported as saying in the Journal Inquirer. “Where the wind will blow next in terms of market returns is anyone’s guess, which reaffirms the need to generally stay put with the [CRPTF’s] long-term asset allocation mix.”



The Teachers Retirement Fund saw its total market value rise to $16.39 billion, and it has a three-year return of 5.92%, a five-year return of 7.78%, a seven-year return of 7.95%, and a 10-year return of 4.89%.



The Connecticut State Employees Retirement Fund’s market value grew to $11.26 billion, and reported three-, five-, seven-, and 10-year returns of 5.92%, 7.78%, 7.99%, and 4.78%, respectively.



The Municipal Employees Retirement Fund had its market value increase to $2.32 billion, and has three-, five-, seven-, and 10-year returns of 5.78%, 7.01%, 7.34%, and 4.71%, respectively.



The CRPTF consist of six state pension funds, and nine state trust funds, managing the invested assets for approximately 212,000 state and municipal employees, teachers, retirees and survivorships.



By Michael Katz

