March 18 (Bloomberg) -- The California Public Employees’Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension, said its assetsreturned 8.9 percent in the first seven months of the fiscal yearas stock holdings surged.

The fund known as CalPERS, with a market value of $282.9 billionas of March 14, said publicly traded equity investments rose 12.7percent through Jan. 31, according to a performance update postedyesterday on its website. Bonds rose 3.1 percent. Private equityreturns, which lag behind other results by three months, rose 9.8percent.

CalPERS needs to average at least 7.5 percent a year to matchits assumed rate of return. The rate is used to calculate how muchthe plan will need to cover benefits promised to members, and whatlocal governments and the state must contribute to make up anydifference.

CalPERS’s assets tumbled during the global recession by morethan a third, from a high of $260.6 billion in October 2007 to$164.7 billion in January 2009. The fund recovered in May underChief Investment Officer Joe Dear.

Dear died last month at 62 of prostate cancer. Senior InvestmentOfficer Theodore Eliopoulos is serving as acting chief investmentofficer while CalPERS searches for a successor.

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