Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, Montreal, returned 2% on its investments in the first half of 2016, helping raise its total assets to C$254.9 billion ($193.5 billion), the Caisse announced Friday.
The performance was above the Caisse’s 1.3% custom benchmark for the six months ended June 30 but was below its 5.9% return in the first half of 2015.
Total assets at the Caisse, which oversees investments for Quebec pension and other government funds, were up 2.8% from the start of 2016, the net result of C$4.8 billion in returns and C$2 billion in contributions, a Caisse news release stated.
For the six months ended June 30, the Caisse returned 1.4% on equities vs. 1% for its custom benchmark; 3.8% on fixed income, compared to the benchmark's 4%; and 2.5% for real assets vs. 3.9%.
Its asset allocation as of June 30 was 47% equity, 34% fixed income, 17% real assets and 2% other assets, which includes hedge funds, commodities and overlay strategies. The Caisse does not break out returns on other investments.
The annualized overall return for the five years ended June 30 was 9.2% vs. its custom benchmark’s 8.3% return.
