Canada Pension Posts New Single-Year Record With 18.3% Return

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) returned 18.3% net of fees in its fiscal year 2015, setting the fund’s record for single-year return.

The fund beat its internal benchmarks, as well.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The performance exceeded CPPIB’s internal benchmark return of 17.0%. Canada’s pension funds measure themselves against internal benchmarks incorporating a mix of assets classes given the diversity of their public and private holdings.

“Everything worked last year,” Chief Executive Mark Wiseman said Friday. He noted that the fund’s 10-year return of 8.0%—an all-time high—was more indicative of the fund’s success because of its long-term liabilities.

[…]

All of CPPIB’s asset classes generated positive returns, but gains of 46.8% and 30.2% in the fund’s holdings of private equities in the emerging and developed markets stood out. The fund diversifies by asset class and geography to boost potential returns while minimizing risk exposure over the long term.

CPPIB has offices in North and South America, Europe, India and Hong Kong, hoping this will help it form local partnerships to gain an edge at identifying prospective investments in different countries. More than C$200 billion of the fund’s investments are held in international assets.

The CPPIB now manages $217 billion in pension assets.

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