The emergence of private assets in pension funds’ portfolios is opening new investment opportunities, said Duncan Burrill (pictured right), managing director and chief executive officer at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. pension plan, during a panel session at the Canadian Investment Review’s 2025 Global Investment Conference.
“We have more opportunities in private markets. There are new asset classes. . . . If you have fixed income on one hand and equities on the other, there’s something in the middle. I think that’s very appealing as an asset allocator, to have access to that.”
The private asset segment has matured significantly over the last 30 years and added to its track record, he said, noting institutional investors have access to a lot more data when reviewing private market allocations. The CBC pension plan has a 30 per cent exposure to alternatives with about 15 per cent in real assets, which started in the 1990s with Canadian real estate and has expanded to private debt and the inclusion of farmland and infrastructure.
Also speaking on the panel, Francois Quinty (pictured middle), director of investment management at Via Rail Canada, said Maple 8 pension funds were pioneers in the alternatives space through direct deals in markets like infrastructure, which then cascaded down to the fund structure investments becoming widely available to smaller plans.
“We’ve been adopting it over the years as these vehicles have become more prevalent.”
Via Rail has a 20 per cent allocation to alternatives with half of its assets located in infrastructure investments, he said, noting the team decided to strategically overweight infrastructure at the expense of real estate around 20 years ago, a move he described as a good trade historically.
The plan has also increased its exposure to the secondaries space in infrastructure, which Quinty said is getting a lot more competitive now. Throughout it all, the focus is on the smaller end of the market available, he added. “If we try as a small plan to replicate what large pension plans are doing, we’re going to end up with lower returns because we don’t have economies of scale.”
Read: Institutional investors increasing allocations to private assets over next 3 years: survey
The decision to start exploring private asset investments was an easy one for Blair Richards (pictured left), chief investment officer at the Halifax Port ILA/HEA, when he confirmed the expected return on fixed income wasn’t enough to meet the overall needs of the pension fund.
“I take pride in the fact that I was not just proactive, I was proactive to the point of being aggressive because our small, little private sector plan went to 45 per cent alternatives back in 2006.”
The real world of a pension fund portfolio would be represented through a 40/30/30 asset mix split compared to the classic 60/40 split between public stocks and bonds. “That move has largely saved us. . . . I think it’s been a very positive move. I think pension plans — in particular, with that long-term, mainly conservative perspective — are well served by what exists there.”
Read more coverage of the 2025 Global Investment Conference.