The Church of England made an impressive return on its investments in 2016, smashing targets to become the envy of many of the City’s fund managers.
The Church Commissioners, the group that oversees the Church’s investable assets of £7.9 billion, made a 17.1 percent return on its investments in 2016. This beat the performance of many top funds, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes and several similar investments including those of Harvard and Yale universities.
The fund is designed to “support the Church of England as a Christian presence in every community”, and has more than a third of the total sum invested in stocks and another 30 percent is in real estate. The church also keeps 10 percent of its portfolio in cash and similarly liquid assets.
In comparison, the investments managed on behalf of Ivy League university Harvard posted a 2 percent loss for the fiscal year to June 2016. The school’s $36 billion investment is split between 13,000 funds. The Church’s investments have also performed better over the past ten years; the Church of England’s endowment has produced annual returns of 8.3 percent over the past decade, with Harvard posting returns of 5.7 percent and Yale of 8.1 percent.