Angela Rodell, CEO of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, was the featured guest of the joint Kenai and Soldotna Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Wednesday. Rodell spoke on the Permanent Fund, its performance, what the fund does and how it closed FY21 at a historic high value.
Rodell said:
“I mentioned this number earlier, on June 30th, we ended with the total fund value of $81 billion, whole new record. It’s interesting. I’m sure many of you know, social media accounts, if you have a Facebook account, they’ll popup a memory of something you might have posted. Today, I had this memory popup posting our FY17 returns and ‘stellar returns, 12.5%! All time high of the fund. We’re at $59.8 billion.’ I remembered how excited I was in 2017 to hit and like, ‘oh man, we just missed $60 billion’. $60 billion! It’s so stunning to me that, here we are four years later, and we’re talking about $81 billion.”
Preliminary results indicate the Fund returned 29.73%, a record strong performance as well. The unaudited results of the Fiscal Year show the Principal of the Fund, consisting of two parts, totaled $60.1 billion. The permanent savings contributions were valued at $46.9 billion, and there were $13.2 billion in unrealized gains.
Rodell said:
“I have never seen returns like this, ever. The idea that we generated, in public equities, so just our stock portfolio, generated 46.9% in one year, is stunning to me. It’s something you will, I don’t think I will ever see anything like that in my lifetime, again. Private equity generated $64.6%. When you ask why we’re in these asset classes, it’s the ability to generate that type of opportunity and that type of growth to the fund, but it also highlights what goes up can go down and why we need to have a diversified portfolio.”
The Earnings Reserve Account totaled $21.0 billion, consisting of four parts. The uncommitted realized earnings were valued at $9.3 billion, and there were $4.6 billion in unrealized gains. The ERA had $3.1 billion in committed realized earnings available for the FY22 POMV draw and $4.0 billion committed to the Principal as a Special Legislative FY22 Appropriation, according to the Permanent Fund Corporation.
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