A Discussion With PSP's Head of Infrastructure on Boosting Canadian Investments
One of Canada’s largest pension funds expects to boost investments in Canada by 30 per cent to 40 per cent over the next few years, bringing its total assets invested at home above the $100 billion level.
The Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s target stems from a more uncertain global landscape alongside new opportunities at home, said Deb Orida, chief executive of PSP, which has $320.6 billion under management and is a co-host of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s global summit, which will bring together top investors from more than two dozen countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East in Toronto next week.
“We’ve been looking for opportunities to leverage our home ice advantage,” she said, adding that the fund already boosted Canadian investments by $10 billion in its most recent fiscal year through a combination of direct private investments and equities.
“As we think about the opportunity going forward, we think that we will likely cross the $100-billion threshold in Canada over the next few years.”
Infrastructure is among the areas where Orida sees more avenues to invest.
PSP has accumulated a $32-billion infrastructure portfolio that generated a 15 per cent return over the past five years and new deals could include equity stakes or infrastructure debt and investment-grade private credit, she said, adding that she has directed the pension fund’s infrastructure and private credit teams to collaborate.
“We are typically looking at it across both and assessing where in the capital structure we think the best risk-adjusted returns are,” she said.
Orida said PSP would also pursue airport investments should Ottawa decide to unload major ownership stakes to generate funds for priority government projects.
“We feel very well positioned to participate in things like airports if they were to become available because PSP has an airport operating platform that operates seven airports,” she said. “It’s an area that we know well and that we’ve made some great investments in.”
New investment opportunities over the next few years could also come through PSP’s management of another pool of capital: the Canada Growth Fund.
“The Canada Growth Fund often will do the early investing, (but) as some of these projects mature, there will be more opportunities for PSP, the pension, in areas like nuclear, critical minerals, other areas of energy infrastructure,” Orida said. “I think (those will be) good investments for our pension mandate.”
Ottawa has struggled for more than a decade to persuade Canada’s large pensions to invest more at home. Some members of the business community have joined the chorus, but there has been pushback from pension fund managers whose mandates require them to base investment decisions on generating returns for their beneficiaries without taking undue risks.
Among the arguments is that Canadian funds are already overweight at home, in part because their domestic holdings exceed the country’s share of global gross domestic product.
But in “a new investing regime,” as Orida described it, that features increasing global uncertainty and tensions with the United States, PSP isn’t alone in turning an eye to Canada, where greater efforts are being made to find ways to align investments with pension mandates.
For example, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) invested $1 billion in Canadian equities in the first half of 2026 and has pledged to add at least $10 billion in new investments in Canada to its portfolio over the next five years.
“While we continue to maintain a geographically diversified portfolio to meet our long-term pension obligations, the current environment in Canada has considerable potential and we look forward to exploring those opportunities that align with our strategy,” Blake Hutcheson, chief executive of OMERS, said in August.
Alright, it's Friday, and typically I reserve the end of the week to talk about markets.
Very quickly, a fresh reading on US inflation showed monthly prices rose more than expected in August, increasing the likelihood the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week.
I'm still not convinced the Fed will raise rates next week but the market thinks it's a done deal. All I know is if the Fed does raise next week, before US midterms, it's a one-and-done deal which will have little influence on markets.
But rates are on everyone's mind lately, and higher rates are impacting risk assets all over the world.
I'll cover markets in detail next Friday.
Discussion With Andrew Alley, Global Head of Infrastructure at PSP Investments
Earlier today, I had a chance to speak with Andrew Alley, managing director and global head of infrastructure investments at PSP Investments.
I want to thank Andrew for taking the time to speak with me and also thank Charles Bonhomme for setting up the Teams meeting and assisting.
Before I get to my discussion, a reminder that Andrew Alley joined PSP Investments back in March from CPP Investments. Lauren Bailey of Markets Group reported on it back in February:
The C$299.7B Public Sector Pension Investment Board has appointed Andrew Alley as managing director and global head of infrastructure investments, effective March 16.
He joins the pension fund from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, where he has held several senior roles in infrastructure in CPP Investments’ Hong Kong, Sydney, London and Toronto offices, more recently serving as managing director and head of infrastructure for North America and Australasia.
“With a strong track record of managing complex, multi-regional portfolios, Andrew brings extensive international experience to our organization,” said PSP investments in a LinkedIn post.
Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2007, Alley worked in the Energy Investment Banking group at RBC Capital Markets in Calgary, AB, and in the Business Development Group at Pengrowth Energy Trust. He also sits on the boards of the 407 ETR in Canada, Transurban Chesapeake in the U.S., and the Cikopo-Palimanan toll road in Indonesia.
Alley succeeds Sandiren Curthan, who had held the role for 14 years.
“A few months ago, due to personal considerations, Sandiren Curthan expressed a desire to return to our London office from the summer of 2026. He will continue to strengthen our infrastructure platform as managing director, infrastructure investments. His contributions have been instrumental in the development of our platform and we look forward to his continued leadership.”
In the post, PSP Investments noted the appointments strengthen its ability to execute strategy regionally in a dynamic and competitive market environment.In fiscal 2025, PSP Investments’ real assets sleeve made up 31% of the total portfolio, with infrastructure accounting for 12% of the real assets bucket. By the end of FY2025, the infrastructure portfolio’s assets under management sat at $32.0B, returning 17.8%.
Alright, Andrew began by giving me a brief introduction and discussing some of the investments he worked on at CPP Investments:
I joined after 18 years at CPPIB in Toronto, but also many places around the world: London, Sydney, Hong Kong. I was running various regional businesses, regional infrastructure businesses for CPPIB, and hit the ground running here at PSP.
An example of things I've worked on? I've been involved with the 407 since inception. So it's a great partnership we have now between CPPIB and PSP. I was at CPP Investments when PSP came in (as a partner on 407). So now, sitting on the other side, I'm still involved. That's an example of some of the things I had done throughout my career there. That's what I've been involved with for 15 years.
I told Andrew that I read the National Post article where Deb spoke with Barbara Shecter, and she specifically referred to infrastructure in Canada helping PSP cross the $100 billion threshold (additional investment in Canada) in a few years.
I asked him what particular areas of infrastructure they are looking at.
He responded:
Absolutely, infrastructure is a big part of that expectation PSP has of an overall $100 billion Canadian number, and I think it's because we see and are excited about the opportunity set that's developing in Canada.
One thing that we really like is when you look at the big areas of focus in Canada through building the nation around energy, around transport, digital as an example, they align very well with our areas of focus, but also our areas of expertise.
You know, an example of that is airports. We have an airport platform (AviAlliance) that operates seven airports around the world. So, if there are opportunities in airports in Canada, that's something we would be really excited about.
But a number of these things fit with what our global capabilities have been. So we're excited about the opportunity to be growing even more in the country beyond the $10 billion that we've invested in the last year. You know, and contributing to that broader number, the $100 billion number.
I asked him, other than airports, where I know PSP has a very strong platform, Deb mentioned critical minerals and nuclear down the road. Are there other areas they are looking at?
Andrew replied:
The interesting thing about PSP is we've got the PSP pension fund, but PSP also manages the Canada Growth Fund. So when we think about growth in some of those areas that you're talking about, that's a place that can play as well. When we think about those areas that are critical for the country, and then as things move into the infrastructure world, as things mature, they tend to fit with infrastructure.
We will do development as well now, building things in infrastructure. If we think of other areas beyond transport and airports, I'm talking about the energy utility sector. We have utility investments around the world, things like electricity transmission, where we did a large investment in the U.S. last year. We'd love to bring that (see my comment on how KKR and PSP bought AEP Transmission stake for US$2.8 billion in early 2025).
I asked Andrew what he expects from next week's Canada Investment Summit in Toronto and whether we will finally see some major announcements around privatizing airports and other investments (ports, etc).
He replied:
I think the thing I would say is there's relationship building. They are bringing international investors together. It's the start of the dialogue around getting big things to happen in Canada. I think the excitement is building. People are curious, so it's the beginning of that journey.
I'm not privy to specific announcements, but we're excited that the interest is here in our country, and we want to be a part of it, driving that large-scale investment forward.
I asked Andrew to take a step back and give me a nice overview of PSP's infrastructure portfolio. He replied:
Yes, absolutely. We're a growing portfolio. We're about $32 billion in net asset under management, growing substantially, which is exciting because we want to apply that to Canada.
We find a nice split and balance across the various big buckets of infrastructure, and we see that largely continuing. So, I see us leveraging the expertise and platforms that we do have in areas like transport, with airports, and then growing in areas like utilities where we like the exposures and we want more, and then also redeploying in areas like digital.
Digital was a large exposure. We sold a lot, which was good for our returns but we're excited about that sector, so we're actively looking at ways to rebuild that exposure in that space.
I asked him to share more broadly with my readers how PSP views infrastructure and its importance ot the overall portfolio. Andrew responded:
Infrastructure has been a strong performer historically for PSP, and it's something that we are really excited about going forward.
Coming from that strong position of prior success with returns, but also the global capabilities that we've built, so we're really excited about taking that forward.
If we think of the key ways we do that, we will lean into what we're good at, and continue to expand on that. So, it is with those platforms, it is with those sectors of expertise that I mentioned earlier.
But the group has been really good about thinking and about identifying what's next. We were an early investor in data centers at the early stage of that growth, and we're always thinking about what could come next.
And it's what will be the real big buckets of infrastructure going forward. It's less about chasing the next risky thing-it's more about the things that everyone's going to see as more mature infrastructure assets going forward.
So we come at it from those two ways, and then want to apply that lens to everything that's happening in Canada now. We think it's just a great time to be bringing that global expertise back to Canada.
Lastly, I noted that CPP Investments is more open now to work with large private equity funds like KKR, Blackstone and even BlackRock on major infrastructure investments (see my recent comment here), and asked him if increased competition in the asset class is limiting their ability to go it alone.
Andrew replied:
For us, our success has been driven by the direct investing program, the platforms that I mentioned, the large direct investments that we make, and that will always be core to our program.
We've always had that tool in the toolkit to work with the funds as well. That's been a part of our business historically, and something we always have the ability to do. So we've got multiple tools in the toolkit to apply to each situation, but these core big direct investments, particularly here in Canada, where we really want to apply that, will be the main driver.
Great brief discussion with Andrew Alley who is a really nice and knowledgeable guy. I'm glad he and his young family have settled nicely here in Montreal.
On Monday, I will discuss how OTPP is also expanding its Canadian investments.
Alright, let me wrap it up there and wish everyone a nice long weekend.
We will never forget 9/11, the innocent victims taken that day from their families.
Hard to believe that was 25 years ago but it's also a good reminder of how we come together in the face of evil and hardship.
Below, in this session at the Conference of Montréal 2026, leaders from the transportation, logistics, infrastructure, and finance sectors examine how strategic infrastructure investments can strengthen Canada’s competitiveness in an evolving global economy.
The speakers include John Di Bert, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Air Canada; Michael Castagnetto, President of North American Surface Transportation, C.H. Robinson; Daniel Farina, President and CEO, CDPQ Infra; Gregory Balycky, Managing Director, Investments, Canada Infrastructure Bank and Jeremy Melhuish, Vice-President, Sectors and International Advisory, Export Development Canada.
Also, Holly Newman Kroft, Neuberger managing director and senior wealth advisor, joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss how the markets are taking the latest US CPI number.
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