The Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System is reporting a net investment return of negative 0.4 per cent — or a loss of $500 million — for the first half of 2022.
During the period, the OMERS earned a net investment return of six per cent — or a gain of $6.7 billion — after reporting a net investment return of 15.7 per cent for the 2021 calendar year. Net assets as at June 30, 2022 were $119.5 billion.
Read: Caisse reporting negative 7.9% return for first half of 2022
“As everyone has witnessed, the first half of the year was extraordinarily difficult for investors in an environment characterized by ongoing geopolitical challenges, supply chain issues, recessionary threats and soaring increases to both inflation and interest rates — more rapid than we have seen in decades,” said Blake Hutcheson, president and chief executive officer of the OMERS, in a press release.
“These influences combined to create acute stress in the global economic environment, pushing the returns for leading global investment market indices to decline well into the double digits. Against this backdrop, our investment teams and strategy have been extremely effective in protecting the value of our members’ portfolio by any objective measure.”