Canada Pension Plan, Ottawa, returned a gross 3.4% in the quarter ended Sept. 30, its fiscal second quarter, helping raise plan assets to C$234.4 billion (US$206.9 billion).
The quarterly return was above the 1.1% aggregate return for Canadian defined benefit plans in the RBC Investor & Treasury Services universe.
Performance was driven by strong fixed-income returns that offset “mixed” returns in public equities, Mark Wiseman, president and chief investment officer of the CPP Investment Board, Toronto, said in a news release. CPPIB manages the pension fund's assets.
The board does not provide quarterly returns for each asset class.
Plan assets were up 3.4%, or C$7.6 billion, from the previous quarter. Of that, C$7.5 billion came from investment returns, with C$100 million coming from CPP contributions.
As of Sept. 30, the pension fund had a nominal rate of return of 5.1% over six months, an annualized 10.2% for five years and an annualized 7.5% for 10 years.
Its asset allocation as of Sept. 30 was 33% public equity, 32.5% fixed income, 18.3% private equity, 10.8% real estate and 5.4% infrastructure. As of June 30, its allocation was 33.8% fixed income, 31.2% public equity, 18.5% private equity, 10.9% real estate and 5.6% infrastructure.
