(The Center Square) – Investments held by the state of North Carolina’s retirement system have grown by more than $12 billion in the last year, thanks to strong markets and “strategic decisions,” according to the state treasurer.
Retirement plan assets have increased from $126.5 million to a record $139.1 billion from Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30 of this year, first-term Repubican state Treasurer Brad Briner said in a release.
The investments have grown by 11%, nearly twice the target of 6.5%, according to Briner.
“Today is a big day in North Carolina’s financial history,” Briner said in a statement. “We’ve come a long way since January, but we have much more to do.”
The state pensions funds have “underperformed for years,” Briner told The Center Square earlier this year.
He pushed for a new board, the North Carolina Investment Authority, to take over management of investments instead of the treasurer alone. Legislation authorizing the authority passed the Legislature this year and was signed into law. The authority includes a board of directors chaired by the treasurer.
The retirement system manages eight pension plans for more than 1 million people and distributes $640 million each month in benefit checks.
For years, North Carolina ranked either 49th or 50th in the nation on retirement system investment returns, with too much money held in cash, Briner said.
One school of thinking is that retirement systems should be conservative in their investments because the recipients of the pensions are older, Briner told The Center Square in an interview earlier this year. But the investments have to be able to keep up with inflation, which has been around 54% over the last 15 years, the treasurer said.
Since August, pension fund investments include private equity, including a private medical services company, real estate and energy, the treasurer’s office said this week.
The new investment authority this week approved a $26.1 million budget for fiscal year 2026. A consulting firm, Mercer, recommended paying staff at the authority competitive salaries to “attract, retain and motivate the right people to meet long-term investment goals for the retirement systems,” according to a release.
