Pension Pulse

James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reports the public-sector pension board earned 6.5% last year after boosting Canadian holdings: The Public Sector Pension Investment Board boosted its investments in Canadian stocks and some infrastructure assets to help guard against inflation as the fund earned a 6.5-per-cent return in a volatile year for markets. PSP’s private-asset investments in real estate, credit and private equity struggled in its last fiscal year, keeping with a trend that has seen large institutional investors lag behind their benchmark targets even as public stock markets have surged in value. As a result, the fund fell short of its internal benchmark of 13.1 per cent, and a reference portfolio of assets set by the federal government, which earned 11.7 per cent. PSP manages pensions for the federal public service, Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP. As of March 31, when its fiscal year ended, it manages net assets of $320.6-billion, up 7 per cent from the ...

 Jessica Hamlin of PitchBook reports BCI's new PE head shakes up continuation fund formula:  The new head of private equity at British Columbia Investment Management Corporation is betting that liquidity maneuvers, such as continuation funds, are here to stay. BCI’s PE unit, which oversees at least C$36 billion ($25.7 billion), announced on May 28 the launch of a private capital solutions group. Under the leadership of Jon Salon, the new group will fund preferred equity issuance and recapitalizations, invest in continuation vehicles and take minority stakes in companies, as part of a strategic response to the prolonged liquidity shortage in private markets. “There’s this perfect storm of challenges and opportunity,” Salon told PitchBook. The capital solutions group is Salon’s first major initiative as PE head since his appointment in January, when he replaced Jim Pittman. Pittman led the program for a decade, growing it from C$7 billion AUM. “We said, what are ...

Joey Klender of TESLARATI reports  SpaceX IPO set to provide massive $11.6B windfall for teacher pension plan: The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) stands to reap one of the most extraordinary returns in pension fund history thanks to a bold 2019 investment in SpaceX. According to a recent report from The Globe and Mail , the Toronto-based fund invested roughly $300 million CAD (~$220 million USD at the time) in Elon Musk’s space company as its inaugural deal through the Teachers’ Innovation Platform. At SpaceX’s anticipated $1.75 trillion IPO valuation, set for a mid-June debut on Nasdaq under ticker $ SPCX, that stake could now be worth up to $11.6 billion USD . This would represent a roughly 50x return and easily become OTPP’s most successful single investment ever. The fund manages $279 billion in assets for approximately 346,000 working and retired teachers in Ontario, potentially delivering an average boost of around $33,500 pe...