While the State struggles to make ends meet, the Alaska Permanent Fund is reporting a 2.8% gain for the third quarter of FY15. Laura Achee with the Fund said that makes for a year-to-date return of 4.7% after some early losses.
Achee: “In the late summer and early fall, both the US markets and overseas markets were down, but they started rallying. First US markets came back and then non-US markets started heading upwards as well, so in this third quarter, we did see positive performance all around.”
More than half of the Fund is invested in stocks.
Overall, investments grew by $1.5 billion, ending March 31 with a total value of $53.9 billion. Achee said at this point in the year, it’s unlikely the Fund could post a loss for FY15.
Achee: “Deson’t look like we’re on track to have large gains this year, but doesn’t look like we’re on track to have any losses either.”
Achee detailed the Fund’s earnings…
U.S. and non-U.S. stocks had positive performance for the quarter, regaining ground lost early in the fiscal year. The Fund’s U.S. stock portfolio returned 2.5 percent for the quarter and 6.6 percent for the fiscal year-to-date. Non-U.S. stocks were slower to rally, and while the portfolio returned 2.9 percent for the quarter, year-to-date performance was down -6.3 percent. The Fund’s global stock investments returned 3.4 percent for the quarter and 1.2 percent for the fiscal year-to-date.
In contrast, non-U.S. fixed income have shown steady returns over the fiscal year, up 2.2 percent for the quarter and 7.0 percent for the fiscal year-to-date. U.S. fixed income regained ground lost early in the first quarter, up 1.6 percent and 2.5 percent for the respective periods. The Fund’s real estate investments returned 2.5 percent for the quarter and 7.1 percent for the fiscal year-to-date.
The Fund’s private equity investments gained 2.7 percent for the quarter, bringing the fiscal year-to-date return to 10.6 percent. After two quarters of flat performance, the absolute return portfolio gained 1.3 percent for the quarter and 1.5 percent for the fiscal year-to-date, while the infrastructure holdings returned 1.3 percent and 4.9 percent for the respective periods.
The Permanent Fund recorded $781 million in statutory net income for the quarter, bringing the fiscal year-to-date total to $2.1 billion. Statutory net income is comprised of bond interest, stock dividends, real estate rental income and the net proceeds of the sale of assets. It is used to calculate the annual Permanent Fund Dividend.
For more information on the Fund’s performance, return information for additional asset classes, and financial statements, please visit the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s web site at www.apfc.org.
