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Church fund divines a heavenly return
By Robert Budden in London
March 29 2005
Church of EnglandThe Church of England's £4.3bn investment fund was the second-best performer of more than 1,000 funds over the past decade.
The Church Commissioners' fund, which has a history going back over 300 years and supports a wide range of Church activities, including the clergy's pensions, has achieved an average annual return of 11.1 per cent.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s performance suffered because of the fund's overweight position in commercial and residential property. More than a decade later this aggressive weighting has paid off handsomely.
Over the past 10 years the fund, which manages money accrued by King Henry VIII and given to the Church by Queen Anne in 1704, has outperformed the average pension fund by 3.2 percentage points annually.
WM Company, which prepared Tuesday's figures and monitors the performance of segregated funds - which have only one primary investor - did not disclose the identity of the best-performing fund.
The Church of England has 32 per cent of its fund invested in property including a weighting of 9 per cent in residential property. This compares with typical property weightings in segregated funds of just 7 per cent at the end of last year, according to WM. The fund eschews investments in pornography, weapons, alcohol, tobacco and newspapers.
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