Canada’s OPTrust opens Sydney office

The pension fund has relocated managing director Stan Kolenc and portfolio manager Morgan McCormick to Sydney from London.

The new branch is targeting private equity investments of A$$20 million ($19 million) to A$75 million and infrastructure deals of A$50-250 million, Kolenc told The Wall Street Journal. "Sydney made sense for us, because we expect most of our Asian infrastructure investments to be in Australia and New Zealand," he said.

OPTrust currently oversees C$14.7 billion ($14.3 billion) in assets. Its infrastructure and private equity portfolios, which launched in 2006, are responsible for investing 30% of the fund's total assets management. About 40% of that was deployed in Europe, 40% in North America, and the remaining 20% into developed Asia and emerging markets.

These portfolios reached a combined market value of $2.5 billion last year, up from $1.5 billion in 2011.

Infrastructure investments returned 23.7% last year, above the benchmark return of 5.7% over the nation's consumer price index. Private equity holdings generated a return of 20.5% for the year, outperforming the 18.4% private equity benchmark return for 2012.

 

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