Oxford’s Baptist Fund Earns More Than $10.1M

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

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The $30-plus million investment from the sale of Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi has earned more than $10 million since 2012.

On Tuesday, representatives from Glenmede Investment Group, which is handling the city’s fund, presented the fiscal year-end report to the Oxford Reserve and Trust Fund Committee. The fiscal year for the investment fund runs from April 1 to March 31.

The value of the fund as of March 31, was $35,032.364. However, as of Monday, the fund was valued at $35,437,359, representing a net investment gain of about $10.1 million that includes any withdrawals for fee payments and the annual 3 percent 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 $850,000 from the fund, totaling just over $5 million.

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

John Church of Glenmede told the trustees that while a recession in the next 12 months is not yet a true concern, recessionary indicators have been trending higher.

“We’re battening down the hatches a bit,” he said.

As of March 31, 36 percent of the assets are allocated to equities, 56 percent are allocated to fixed income, and 8 percent is allocated to cash or money market funds.

The top 10 holdings in the equity portfolio include Cisco Systems, Citigroup Inc., PayPal Holdings, Ingersoll-Rand PLC, Eaton Corp PLC Ordinary, Bank of America Corp, Intel Corp., Valero Energy Group, Target Corp. and the Chevron Corporation.