Baptist Fund Sees Gain in First Quarter of Fiscal Year

By Alyssa Schnugg
News editor
alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com

The over $30 million investment from the sale of Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi rallied in the first quarter of this fiscal year to see an 8.6% gain over last quarter.

In 2012, Baptist paid the city and Lafayette County $60 million to buy the hospital so it could get out of its lease and build the new Baptist hospital that opened in November 2017. Baptist eventually sold the old facility to the University of Mississippi for $22 million. The city and county split the funds and received $30 million each. 

The fiscal year for the investment fund runs from April 1 to March 31.

On Tuesday, representatives from Glenmede Investment Group, which is handling the city’s fund, presented the first-quarter report to the Oxford Reserve and Trust Fund Committee.

The value of the fund as of June 30, was $36,820,486. The fund has had a net investment return of about $14 million since inception in 2012 which includes any withdrawals for fee payments and the annual 3% payout to the city of Oxford that goes into the city’s general fund to help fund a variety of projects.

Each year the city has received about $800,000-$887,000 from the fund, totaling almost $6 million.

The fund’s long-term goals, set up by the committee, are capital preservation and real growth after inflation and the annual 3% payoff.

Glenmede is instructed to try to grow the fund enough to allow for annual payouts but to do so in a conservative fashion as to not risk losing the initial $30 million investment. The fund is a moderately low-risk investment.

As of March 31, 41% of the assets are allocated to equities, 53% is allocated to fixed income and 6% is allocated in cash. Fixed income investments are in high-quality U.S. bonds rated A or better with a tilt toward corporate bonds.