A strong year of investment growth brought OPERS to the forefront of U.S. public pension plans.
According to research from international money management newspaper Pensions & Investments (P&I), OPERS saw higher gains than any of the other U.S. public pension funds tracked by P&I. Systems across the country saw a median return of 14.3% for the year ending June 30, 2026, while OPERS led the pack with a net-of-fee return of 19.4% for the same time period.
“Fiscal year 2026 was another example of the success that can come with being disciplined in applying the investment philosophy over time” said OPERS Executive Director Joseph Fox. “The OPERS Board of Trustees again deserves the credit for maintaining our overall investment philosophy over the long term, which has resulted in meeting our investment objectives but at a fraction of the cost compared to our peers.”
OPERS Chief Investment Officer Brad Tillberg said the fund’s overall performance was driven by the exposure to U.S. and non-U.S. equity asset classes. The domestic equity portfolio returned 27.4% gross of fees for the fiscal year, and non-U.S. equity investments returned 25.2% gross of fees for the same period.
“The equity portion of the portfolio outperformed the equity policy by almost 260 basis points,” Tillberg said. “We had a good contribution from active managers in the large cap space, and then we had exceptional contribution from one manager in particular in small cap space.”
The OPERS portfolio consists of target allocations of 40% to U.S. equity, 28% to non-U.S. equity, and 32% to fixed income.
As of July 1, 2026, the OPERS plan was 113.1% funded on an actuarial basis and had $15.5 billion in assets.