Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which manages C$169.8 billion ($120.3 billion) as one the largest pension investment managers in Canada, returned a net -0.6% on its investments in the fiscal year ended March 31, a news release Thursday said.
The negative net return reflected "severe market declines due to the global COVID-19 pandemic in the weeks preceding the March 31, 2020 year-end," though Montreal-based PSP Investments exceeded its policy benchmark return of -2.2%, the release said.
The best-performing asset class was infrastructure, which returned a net of 8.7% comparted to its -3.2% benchmark return.
Private equity was the second-best performing asset class, returning net 5.2% that lagged its 6.9% benchmark return, while credit investments returned net 4.3%, exceeding the -3.7% benchmark return.
Public market equities and fixed-income assets returned -3%, underperforming the -2.3% benchmark return, while real estate and natural resources returned net -4.4% and -5.2%, respectively, for the fiscal year ended March 31. PSP Investments beat its natural resources -5.8% benchmark return, but underperformed the -4% benchmark return for real estate investments.
The overall five-year annualized net return for PSP's investments was 5.8%, above the policy benchmark's 5.1% return. Its 10-year net annualized return of 8.5% was above the return objective of 5.7%.
