Houston Firefighters' Relief & Retirement Fund reported a preliminary gross return of 0.1% for the fiscal year ended June 30 in a news release Sept. 2.
For the three, five and 10 years, the $5.1 billion pension fund returned an annualized gross 11%, 9.3% and 8.7%, respectively.
The pension fund had returned a net 33.5% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021.
Benchmark information was not provided.
Of the 59 public pension funds whose returns for the fiscal year ended June 30 have been tracked by Pensions & Investments, the Houston firefighters' pension fund is only the eighth to report a positive return. The median return among the tracked plans as of Tuesday is -5.1%.
For the year ended June 30, the Russell 3000 index and Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond index returned -13.9% and -10.3%, respectively, in sharp contrast to returns of 44.2% and 4.6% for the year ended June 30, 2021.
The pension fund did not provide returns by asset class or an asset allocation as of June 30, but the pension fund likely benefited from an outsized total allocation to alternatives.
As of June 30, 2021, according to its website, the pension fund had allocations of 32% to private equity and 5% each to real estate and a non-specific alternatives asset class.
The rest of the allocation as of that date was 39% common equity, 16% fixed income and 3% short-term investment funds.
Spokesman Joe Gimenez could not be immediately reached for further information.
