South Carolina RSIC · Retirement System Investment Commission · $50.3B
South Carolina's alternatives are 28% of assets and 96% of costs
South Carolina publishes its raw independent cost-benchmarking report, which almost no allocator does. Total investment cost runs 114 basis points against a peer-adjusted benchmark of 95, and one line explains most of it: alternatives are 28% of assets and 96% of total cost. The attribution is the interesting part. The overrun is mostly hedge fund performance fees earned on outperformance, and the plan beat its peer median by 2.1% a year over five years.
Key numbers, and what they mean
28% and 96%
Alternatives as a share of assets, and as a share of total investment cost. That single sentence in the report is the clearest public statement anywhere of what private and alternative assets cost to own.
19 bps
How far above its peer-adjusted benchmark the plan runs: 114 basis points against 95. The benchmark holds asset mix constant, so the gap is about what it pays rather than what it owns.
280 bps
What the benchmarking firm assumes the underlying managers charge inside a buyout fund-of-funds, 150 base plus 130 performance, wherever the vehicle does not report that layer itself. It is a rate per mandate, not a plan-level cost.
+2.1%
Net value added against peers over five years, against a peer median of 0.9%. High cost is not automatically bad. Unattributed cost always is.
Asset mix, June 2025
Public equity43.7%
Bonds25.4%
Private equity13.3%
Real assets10.7%
Private debt6.9%
Its own labels, against targets of 46%, 26%, 9%, 12% and 7%. The 28% alternatives figure is measured on the benchmarking report's separate December 2024 basis and grouping.
The read-through
From the report
Takeaway: how to apply it to a portfolio
Alternatives are 28% of assets and 96% of total investment cost, and the benchmark holds asset mix constant, so the 19 basis point overrun is about price rather than about what the plan owns.
Split your cost report by asset class before you judge the total. A number that looks high across a whole portfolio is usually one sleeve, and you cannot negotiate a blended figure. You can negotiate the sleeve.
Where a fund-of-funds does not report what its underlying managers charge, the benchmarking firm imputes 150 basis points of base fee and 130 of performance fee for a buyout mandate, and adds it to the reported cost.
If you reach private equity through a fund-of-funds or a platform, the fee you are quoted is the layer you can see rather than the layer you pay. Ask the provider to state the underlying blended rate in writing, and treat a refusal as the answer.
The overrun is attributed mainly to hedge fund performance fees, paid because those funds outperformed, while the plan added 2.1% a year against a peer median of 0.9% over five years.
High cost is not automatically bad, and unattributed cost always is. Ask what the extra bought before you cut it, because a success fee on real outperformance is a different thing from paying more for the same service.
The Argus lensThat 280 basis point figure exists only because a fund-of-funds did not report what its underlying managers charge. That hidden layer is what we read for: what a fund actually charges, on what base, and what it keeps above the hurdle.
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About the source
The Commission's CY2024 benchmarking report, prepared by CEM Benchmarking and published in full on its own site, gives the 114 basis point cost, the 95 basis point benchmark, the attribution by implementation style, the alternatives line and the imputed underlying fee rates. Data is as of 31 December 2024, against a peer group of 14 US plans with a median size of $47 billion. Assets, returns and the asset mix come from its annual investment report for the year ended 30 June 2025.