The Canadian Institutional Investor Network tracks new mandates for institutional investors in Canada across asset classes. To answer this question, I pulled their year-over-year data to see which asset classes drew in the most money – and which ones gained the most over last year.
Not surprisingly, mandates for Canadian bonds topped the list with $23.4 billion flowing in – but that’s a 52% jump over 2014 when $15.5 billion went to Canadian bonds. Global equity also experienced a significant inflow of new assets – $11.1 billion in 2015 versus last year’s $6.6 – a 68% increase.
Canadian equity remained flat at $6.7 billion – virtually unchanged since 2014.
Those numbers could reflect more institutions taking action to combat market volatility (flight to quality) – and diversifying outside of Canada as economic fundamentals on the home front continue to decline.
The lowly loonie has also been on the minds of investors as currency risk management saw big gains year-over-year — $1.5 billion went to products and strategies designed to deal with currency risk, a 112% gain over 2014’s $721 million.
Private equity and mortgages also pulled ahead in 2015 – both were up 299% and 635% respectively. Finally, corporate and high yield bonds saw a drop off in new mandates – down 68%.