Oxford’s $30M Investment Gained $6M in the Last 12 Months

Oxford’s $30-plus million trust fund from the sale of the old Baptist hospital earned a $6,837,328 investment return in the last 12 months despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, representatives from Glenmede Investment Group, which is handling the city’s fund, presented the 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 $39,739,189, representing an investment gain of about $16.6 million since its inception in 2012 that includes any withdrawals for fee payments and the annual 3 percent payout.

As of Tuesday, the fund value had increased to $40,824,000.

“That is the first time the fund has been above $40 million,” said John Church with Glenmede. “That’s quite a milestone.”

Each year the city has received about $800,000-$887,000 from the fund, totaling almost $6.6 million. This fiscal year, the city received $883,422.

The fund was valued at $33,916,589 on April 1, 2020.

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

As of March 31, 46 percent of the assets are allocated to equities and 54 percent is allocated to fixed-income investments and cash. Fixed income investments are in high-quality U.S. bonds rated A or better with a tilt toward agency, corporate and mortgage bonds with relatively attractive yields.

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.