Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

The Church Commissioners have today published their full Annual Report and Accounts for 2011, announcing a 2.9 per cent total return on their investments during 2011 and confirming the fund’s strong long-term performance.

The Commissioners' fund is a closed fund, taking in no new money, and has now outperformed both its target return of RPI +5.0% p.a. and its comparator group over the past three, 15 and 20 years.*  

Andrew Brown, Secretary to the Church Commissioners, said: “The past year has been difficult for all investors with global stock markets down between -4 per cent and -18 per cent, but the changes we have made to our portfolio over the past 18 months resulted in a positive return in 2011. 

“Much of our expenditure, representing 15 per cent of the cost of the Church’s mission, is devoted to clergy pensions, but in partnership with the Archbishops’ Council we aim also to invest in Church growth and in maintaining a nationwide Christian presence, identifying areas of need and opportunity in all contexts.”  

The Commissioners - who contributed nearly £200 million in 2011 towards the cost of supporting the mission of the Church of England – manage assets which were valued at £5.2 billion at the end of 2011. More than half of their current distributions meet the cost of clergy pensions earned up to the end of 1997.  

Writing in the report’s foreword – full text below - Andreas Whittam Smith, First Church Estates Commissioner, said: “In what was a difficult year for investors like us who take a long-term view, we did succeed in edging ahead even though our portfolio contained none of the types of assets that are favoured when fear displaces optimism as happened during much of 2011.  

“What helped us was that the Commissioners’ private equity investments rose by 12.5% and the specialist managers we employ who trade in a wide variety of asset classes produced an increase of 6.6%. In addition we made timely reductions in our exposure to equities and held the proceeds in cash and short dated UK government securities.   But what helped us most of all is that real estate makes up one third of our portfolio, with property assets advancing by 13.1% last year.”     

The Commissioners’ overall 2.9 per cent return was achieved against a comparator performance of 3.6 per cent for 2011. Over the past 10 years, total returns averaged 7.0 per cent per year, against the comparator group’s 5.9 per cent per year. Over the past 15 years, the Commissioners outperformed the comparator group with an average annual return of 8.4 per cent against 6.5 per cent.  

The Commissioners manage their investments within ethical guidelines with advice from the Church of England’s Ethical Investment Advisory Group. 

The fund is held in a broad range of assets. Returns contribute to the ministry of each of the Church’s 44 dioceses by: paying for clergy pensions for service up to the end of 1997; supporting poorer dioceses with the costs of ministry; funding some mission activities; paying for bishops' ministries and some cathedral costs; and funding the legal framework for parish reorganisation. 

In 2011, the Church Commissioners continued to provide significant support to encourage the growth of the Church’s existing ministries and new opportunities, including £5.6 million in 2011 for mission and other development funding. 

The main items of expenditure were (with 2010 figures in brackets):

• £114.6 million (£114.0 million) for clergy pensions based on service before 1998
• £37.7 million (£46.8 million) for parish mission and ministry support, primarily to less-resourced dioceses
• £30.8 million (£27.5 million) for supporting bishops, including Archbishops, in their diocesan and national ministries, mainly for staff costs.
• £8.4 million (£7.7 million) for stipends of cathedral clergy and grants to cathedrals, mainly for staff salaries
• £4.1 million (£4.5 million) for other charitable expenditure including support for other Church bodies, and support costs for pastoral reorganisation.  

The Annual Report can be read in full here. 

Ends

Further information from:  Louis Henderson         tel 020 7898 1326