Institutional Investors See Healthy First Quarter

May 2, 2012 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - As a result of the double digit returns of equities and real estate investment trusts (REITs), all institutional plan types reported strong positive median returns in Q1.

According to the Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service (Wilshire TUCS), all institutional asset owners in Wilshire TUCS had their best quarter since the third quarter of 2010 with a median return of 7.42%. Plan type median returns ranged from the foundations and endowment’s 7.16% to the Taft-Hartley defined benefits’ 8.14%.  

Among corporate plans, the returns by all plans saw median performance of 7.35% for the quarter, 5.46% for the year and 17.16% per year for the three-year period.    

Bigger plans did better over this time period with large Master Trusts with assets above $1 billion and those with more than $5 billion delivering median returns of 16.24% and 16.57%, respectively.  

Wilshire TUCS includes approximately 900 plans representing nearly $3 trillion in assets. 

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