About The Common Retirement Fund

As a System stakeholder, it is important for you to be familiar with the Common Retirement Fund. You should have an understanding of its purpose, how it is structured and managed, its investment performance and philosophy, and how it impacts all stakeholders. To that end...

The Comptroller is the sole trustee of the Common Retirement Fund, which was established to hold all the assets and income of the Retirement System in a single unified investment program. As of March 31, 2011, the value of the Fund’s investments was more than $147.2 billion.

As sole trustee, the Comptroller guides the investment of pension funds through the Office of the State Comptroller’s Division of Pension Investments and Cash Management. Composed of eight bureaus — Absolute Return, External Equities, Fixed Income, Internal Equities, Opportunistic, Private Equity, Real Estate and Corporate Governance — the Division manages the System’s stock portfolio, promotes corporate responsibility, ensures director accountability and attempts to increase corporate performance.