Public assets like exchange-traded funds grant endowments and foundations with full liquidity in their investment pursuits, according to Mark Webster, director of institutional sales and service at BMO Global Asset Management, during the Canadian Investment Review’s 2025 Endowment & Foundation Investment Forum.

While the Maple 8 model does offer investment lessons, some can prove too unwieldy to adapt, he noted. The model, also known as the Canadian model, refers to strategies from the country’s eight biggest pension funds — the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Alberta Investment Management Corp., the British Columbia Investment Management Corp., the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan and the Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System — that are capable of investing billions of dollars in transactions across jurisdictions.

Read: How the investment strategies of the Maple 8 impact the decisions of medium- and small-sized plan sponsors

One area where the Maple 8 pension funds offer a lesson is alternative assets, said Webster, noting these are now a modern requirement in portfolio mixes for diversification and a lack of return in other traditional assets. According to data from the Pension Investment Association of Canada, pension funds and other institutional investors with significant resources are on average heavily invested in alternatives.

“These are public pension plans that have a 40-, 50- and even a 60-year runway in front of them,” he says, referring to the Maple 8. “They have a liberty to go into more expensive illiquid assets because they have such a timeframe ahead of them. Where resources are more restrained and entry costs or access costs are higher, unsurprisingly, we see alternatives are less than half the allocation.”

Read: Liquidity status guiding Canadian pension funds through near-term market volatility: report

Webster suggested endowment and foundation investors closely monitor the cost associated with accessing a variety of asset classes, highlighting that ETFs offer different levels of liquidity to investors. Indeed, he said they can gain a liquidity advantage through ETFs over pooled funds or separately managed accounts.

“If you’re looking at injecting flexibility, control and lowering cost, these tools and approaches can help.”

Read more coverage from the 2025 Endowment & Foundation Investment Forum.