The Florida State Board of Administration (SBA), which handles investments for state employees and retirees, announced that it oversaw solid growth in the Florida Retirement System (FRS) pension fund -- adding almost $10 billion to its market value in the 2009-2010 fiscal year and paying more than $4.5 billion to retirees. This represented an increase of more than 14 percent from last year.

“Exceeding the benchmark return by 251 base points, this past year’s return marks the greatest return over benchmark for the FRS pension plan in the last 25 years,” said Ash Williams, the executive director and chief investment officer of the SBA. “The fiscal year results show a promising rebound from the near-term volatility of 2008, and pushed the FRS 20-, 25- and 30-year returns to 8.18 percent, 8.98 percent and 9.56 percent, respectively.”