Investments

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With net assets of almost $25 billion, OPTrust invests and manages one of Canada’s largest pension funds. OPTrust is a global investor in a broad range of asset classes including Canadian and foreign equities, fixed income, real estate, infrastructure and private equity, and has a team of highly experienced investment professionals located in Toronto, London and Sydney.

We use a Member-Driven Investing (MDI) strategy, which is our application of a Total Portfolio Approach. This emphasizes an integrated approach to investing in which management and the Board work toward shared stakeholder objectives, namely preserving the fully funded status of the Plan over the long term.

We focus on achieving the organization’s mission to pay pensions today and preserve pensions for tomorrow. This means keeping the Plan in balance to preserve its fully funded status. The three key components of this balance are contributions and investment returns on one side, and benefits on the other. We need to take risks to ensure the sustainability of the Plan, but not so much that we jeopardize the stability of contributions and benefits. Improving pension certainty means striking the right balance between these two objectives:

  • Sustainability – generating sufficient returns to keep the Plan fully funded, and
  • Stability – keeping contributions and benefits as stable as possible throughout time.
Assets: Investment Returns + Contributions vs. Liabilities: Benefits

Our MDI strategy involves hedging our liabilities to the extent possible, harvesting a diversified set of risk premia, adding value in asset classes where we have a competitive advantage, and implementing cost-effective risk-mitigation strategies. We construct our portfolio to be resilient to different economic and market environments. This helps our Plan weather market volatility while also delivering attractive returns in good times.

We also consider other risks to long-term plan sustainability, including climate change and other environmental, social and governance (ESG)-related risks.

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