CalSTRS · California State Teachers' Retirement System · $415B
CalSTRS must publish a gross return for every fund. 384 of 403 are blank.
California law requires CalSTRS to report the gross and the net return of every private fund it owns. Its September 2026 report has a column for each, side by side, across 403 vehicles. The gross column is filled in 19 times, and the count fell from the year before. Where both numbers exist the median gap is 3.9 percentage points, and in one fund-of-funds a gross return of 10.3% arrives at CalSTRS as a loss of 0.4%.
Key numbers, and what they mean
19 of 403
Funds where the gross return is actually filled in. The column exists for all 403, because the statute requires it, and the count fell from the previous year rather than rising.
3.9 points
The median gap between gross and net return across the 19 funds that disclose both. The upper quartile starts at 6.0 points. That gap is what fees cost, expressed in return terms.
10.3% to -0.4%
One fund-of-funds, 2023 vintage, $250 million committed: its gross return and its net return, on the same fund on the same date. In the 384 blank rows a gap like that is invisible.
13.9%
The plan's own return for the year to June 2026, against a 13.5% benchmark, on $415 billion. Even at that size it could not make most of its managers produce one number.
Asset mix, June 2026
Public equity43.4%
Private equity13.6%
Fixed income12.3%
Real estate11.9%
Risk mitigating strategies8.5%
Inflation sensitive7.0%
Other and cash3.3%
Its own labels. Private equity carries a 14% target and stood at $58.7 billion in March 2026, which is the book the disclosure covers.
The read-through
From the report
Takeaway: how to apply it to a portfolio
The statute requires the gross and net return of each vehicle since inception. The report carries a column for each across 403 funds, and 19 rows have both.
A disclosure regime is only as good as its fill rate. When you are told something is disclosed, ask what share of the field is actually populated. Ask for the blank count rather than the template.
Across the 19 funds that report both, the median gap is 3.9 percentage points and the upper quartile starts at 6.0. One 2023 fund-of-funds shows 10.3% gross against -0.4% net.
Fee load is not a rounding error on a private return. It is routinely a third of it, and in a young fund-of-funds it can be all of it. Underwrite the gross number and subtract your own estimate, rather than accepting a net track record as evidence of skill.
Three manager families supply 17 of the 19 gross figures, and three individual funds that reported one a year earlier stopped: Welsh Carson XIII, MBK Partners V and Oak HC/FT Partners IV.
Transparency is a manager trait rather than a market standard, and it can be withdrawn. Put the gross return in the side letter at commitment, because a manager who reports it voluntarily can stop, and the largest plan in California has no lever to restart it.
The Argus lensThe one number that tells you what a fund costs in return terms is the number 384 managers did not provide. Getting it, and checking it against comparable funds, is exactly the work we do before you commit.
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About the source
CalSTRS's report under Assembly Bill 2833 for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2025, posted for its Investment Committee meeting of 23 September 2026, covers 403 alternative investment vehicles with data as of 30 June 2025. It carries adjacent columns for net and gross internal rate of return since inception, alongside management fees, expenses, carried interest, contributions, distributions and multiple. Plan assets, returns and the asset mix come from its July 2026 results release and its investment policy statement.