The assets managed by minority and women-owned business managers in the state's $127 billion pension fund grew in the last year by $7 billion, a report released Thursday by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's office found.

“As part of our work to ensure that the New York State Common Retirement Fund remains one of the best managed and best funded public pension funds in the nation, we have built new opportunities for asset management with Emerging Managers and Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises, and it has paid off,” DiNapoli said. “There is more work to do, but diversity has strengthened our bottom line and demonstrates that expanding opportunities and access is not only the right approach – it’s the best approach.”

About half of the state pension fund's assets are managed internally, and 21.5% have been allocated to businesses with MWBE status. Overall, assets managed by those firms have increased from $20 billion to $27 billion over the last year.

The effort is part of a decade-long strategy to develop ways of opening doors to asset management by those businesses and encourage competition.