PROVIDENCE – The Rhode Island Pension Fund continues to lead the pack among public pension plans nationally, outperforming 92% of its peers in 2021, according to the R.I. Office of the General Treasurer.
The state pension plan ranked in the 8th percentile among the 594 public pension plans analyzed by Investment Metrics in 2021, a source of investment performance analytics for institutional investors.
The news comes after the state reported the highest annualized return in over a decade for the same year, at 17.3%, compared with the median return of 13.9%.
Rhode Island’s pension fund has outperformed peers in three of the four last fiscal years, finishing in the top 13%, 22% and 48% in fiscal 2020, fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2018, respectively, according to prior Investment Metrics rankings.
Treasurer Seth Magaziner in a statement credited the state’s strong performance to his “Back to Basics” investment strategy, which includes a crisis protection class to shield against volatility.
Nancy Lavin is a staff writer for PBN. Contact her at Lavin@pbn.com.
