The Arizona land endowment fund returned 11.53% on its $2.8 billion holdings in fiscal 2010, higher than some of the largest endowments and pensions funds in the country.
State Treasurer Dean Martin said the fund, which consists of 13 separate trusts for the beneficiaries of land granted to the state at statehood, had a better record last year than Harvard University’s return of 11% on its endowment and the 11.4% return for the California Public Employees Retirement System.
The Harvard fund’s $27.4 billion is the largest university endowment in the country, and CalPERS is the largest pension fund, with $207 billion in assets.
“While we make no attempt to directly compete with Harvard and CalPERS, this comparison shows that our conservative investment strategy has produced better results than very large, sophisticated public investment firms with operational budgets many times larger than ours,” Martin said.
The Arizona fund is up 1.8% for the first two months of fiscal 2011, according to Martin.
The fund has generated more than $154 million for its beneficiaries since Martin took office in January 2007. Unrealized gains total more than $38 million.
The land endowment fund invests 50% of proceeds from state land sales in fixed-income securities and 50% in a passive equity index.
Public education is the largest beneficiary of the fund, and enjoys 92% of the assets in the endowment.
