The net as­set val­ue of Trinidad and To­ba­go's Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund (HSF) stood at US$5.39 bil­lion at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2023, a 14.4 per cent in­crease com­pared with the US$4.71 bil­lion at the end of Sep­tem­ber 2022.

The in­for­ma­tion was dis­closed in the HSF's 2023 an­nu­al re­port, for the pe­ri­od Oc­to­ber 1, 2022 to Sep­tem­ber 30, 2023.

The an­nu­al re­port was up­loaded to the Min­istry of Fi­nance web­site yes­ter­day, more than sev­en month af­ter the end of the HSF's 2023 fi­nan­cial year.

In the sum­ma­ry of the an­nu­al re­port, HSF chair­man, Ewart Williams, said the Fund re­turned 10.59 per cent for the 2023 fi­nan­cial year, "par­tial­ly re­cov­er­ing from the steep loss­es dur­ing the pre­vi­ous fi­nan­cial year, when the Fund de­clined 16.52 per cent."

Williams said the Fund's pos­i­tive per­for­mance was main­ly dri­ven by its eq­ui­ty in­vest­ment, which re­turned 9.24 per cent as stocks ral­lied in ex­cess of 20 per cent.

The HSF's eq­ui­ty bench­marks, Rus­sell 3000 ex-En­er­gy In­dex and MSCI EAFE ex-En­er­gy In­dex, surged 20.21 per cent and 25.26 per cent re­spec­tive­ly.

The HSF's fixed-in­come in­vest­ments (0.95 per cent re­turn) and USD fixed de­posits (0.29 per cent re­turn) al­so added to re­turns.

"When com­pared to its strate­gic as­set al­lo­ca­tion bench­mark's re­turn of 8.56 per cent, the Fund out­per­formed by 2.02 per cent (or 202 ba­sis points) for the fi­nan­cial year," said the HSF chair­man.

"Most no­tably, the Fund's over­weight to US eq­ui­ties and USD fixed de­posits, as well as ac­tive in­vest­ment de­ci­sions with­in the non-US core in­ter­na­tion­al eq­ui­ty man­date, gen­er­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant ex­cess re­turns," ac­cord­ing to Williams.

He al­so not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment con­tributed US$182.2 mil­lion to the HSF in De­cem­ber 2022, in ac­cor­dance with sec­tion 14 of the HSF Act (2007) in re­spect of fi­nan­cial year 2022. That de­posit was held in USD fixed de­posits, con­sis­ten with the board's stance to re­duce down­side risjs to the Fund and sim­i­lar to the treat­ment of the de­posit made in Sep­tem­ber 2022.

The cur­rent HSF board com­pris­es Ewart Williams, chair­man, and mem­bers Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor, Dr Alvin Hi­laire, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Suzette Lee-Chee, deputy Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor, Dr Do­ri­an Noel and Be­van Nar­i­nesingh.