A Prudent, Long-Term Strategy — And a Proven Track Record of Success
The MERS Investments team is dedicated to providing our member municipalities with excellent returns at affordable costs, while protecting the pensions and assets of our many members.
MERS consistently outperforms its benchmarks and market averages, with a prudent, long-term approach designed to provide downside protection and upside market participation.
Our investment goals
- Provide a completely diversified fund utilizing various management and style strategies that will provide downside market protection with upside market participation
- Generate reasonable growth and income while minimizing market volatility
- Integrate and develop industry best practices
- Hire, develop, and retain top-tier investment professionals who are aligned with MERS core values
Our Philosophy
Investing in today’s financial markets is becoming increasingly complex as result of the rapid exchange of information, increased volatility and global interconnectedness. Thus, it is important to identify core beliefs to simplify the decision-making process. Following is a list of our unwavering investment beliefs:
- Capital preservation is paramount — avoiding losses is more important than achieving gains
- Markets are inefficient — they are driven by human emotion which can be overcome by taking a contrarian, long-term perspective
- Keep it simple — if you do not understand it, do not invest in it
- Volatility is not a true measure of risk, permanent impairment of capital or shortfall is risk
- Diversification is critical because the future is unknown
- Mean reversion drives everything — most investments go through cycles, and cycles imply reversion
- The focus should be on risk-adjusted returns — returns cannot be evaluated without considering the risk taken to achieve those returns
We believe that constantly reminding ourselves of and framing our discussions around these central tenets will help achieve the stated investment goals and increase the probability of long-term investing success.
Retirement Strategies
Learn about MERS Retirement Strategies.
Investment Menus
Investments Team
Resources
Investment Policy Statement (DB) (pdf)
