The South Yorkshire Pensions Authority has delivered a surplus of assets over liabilities, according to its latest annual report.
This is the first time this has happened since “at least the 1990s”, according to councillor John Mounsey, chair of the South Yorkshire Pensions Authority.
Mounsey added that this allowed the pension fund, which has some £10.2bn in assets under management, to provide “greater long-term stability to employer contributions”.
According to the three-yearly valuation of the pension fund by Hymans Robertson, strong and consistent investment performance had delivered a surplus of assets over liabilities, with assets at £33.4m (€38m) and liabilities at £15m.
Other key events for the pension fund include the authority approving revisions to the investment strategy which Mounsey said “while not affecting the likelihood of us being able to meet the costs of pensions when they become due, allows us to accelerate the rate of progress towards our investment portfolios becoming net zero”.
The fund, which is part of the Border to Coast asset pool, has also agreed a medium-term resourcing plan designed to ensure that the authority has sufficient staff resources to maintain a sustainable organisation and to deliver the quality-of-service members “rightly expect going into the future”.
In addition the fund received approval for the creation of its Place Based Impact Investment portfolio focused on investment in South Yorkshire.
Mounsey said that despite the turbulence in financial markets over the last year, the fund has been able to “maintain the strong funding position and our overall approach of looking to run the fund in a way which is less exposed to volatility than the average”.
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