State Treasurer Curtis Loftis Issues Statement Concerning SC Investment Commission Performace Report

“Again, the South Carolina Investment Commission presented financial information to the public without proper context. The Commission failed to report that their performance for the calendar year placed them in the bottom 35% of large pension plans.

Every year that we under-perform our peers is a year that public service employees and taxpayers must pay more of their hard earned money into the state retirement system.

Our Investment Commission continues to pay too much in fees and earn too little in returns and our overly complex portfolio places the system at risk.
I asked the Investment Commission to stop using misleading information to hide its poor performance and yet they continue to do so.

As State Treasurer I am the Custodian of the funds. The Commission regularly denies me information pertinent to the safe-keeping of those funds and without that information I cannot guarantee the safety of the 27.8 billion dollar SC Retirement trust Fund. "

Contact: Brian DeRoy – Public Affairs Director
(803) 734-2620 office (803) 733-1645 cell

Attached please find attached two comparative charts illustrating the performance of large public pension plans.

1. On the TUCS Chart please note the highlighted area showing the Investment Commission was in the 81 percentile which is in the BOTTOM 20% in performance.
(This information is from the TUCS universe of large public pension plans over 5 billion dollars)

2. On the BNY (Bank of New York Mellon) chart please note the same are (without highlight) showing the Investment Commission was in the 73 percentile which is the bottom 35% in performance.

Click here to see attachments

Note: there are small reporting issues that affect these returns in nominal ways. Those issue have no material effect on these reports are their underlying information)