NEW YORK STATE TEACHERS RETIREMENT SYSTEM

The New York State Teachers Retirement System, or NYSTRS for short, was established by the New York State Legislature in 1921. NYSTRS is currently the second largest of eight public retirement systems in the state of New York and is one of the top 10 largest public funds in the United States based on the size of its portfolios and total membership. The firm provides its services to public school teachers and administrators within the state, providing benefits for its eligible retirees. NYSTRS utilizes a defined benefit plan that provides retirement, death, and disability benefits based on age, earnings, service credit, and a membership tier that is split up into six levels based on when the members joined with the most recent tier consisting of members who joined after April in 2012. The company invests its assets with a long term perspective in mind, continuously reviewing asset allocations to make sure that they fit within the company’s appropriated level of risk. NSTRS has diversified its asset investments in various classes such as equities, fixed income, and real estate in order to control risks and follow set policy guidelines. The domestic equity portfolio is 95% passively managed by in house staff with the remaining actively managed by external managers. The International equities portfolio is entirely managed entirely, split into &5% passively and 25% actively manager. The contributions that come from employers is taken as a uniform percentage of member payroll and is the same for members at all tiers, constructed through the estimates of future salaries and projected benefit payments based on rate of return on assets, rate of salary growth, mortality rate for its active, retired, and disabled members, and the rates of retirement, disability, and withdrawal. As of 2014, the company had over 270,000 total members with the majority being female. NYSTRS had 150,000 retired members and over 5,500 total beneficiaries with total net assets available for pension benefits totaling over $108 billion.