Pension funds looking to invest in real estate are no longer investing just in Canada, but are making investments abroad.
For the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System(OMERS), it decided that its real estate investment firm—Oxford Properties—was a global business. “We looked at the nature of our assets and we had too much Toronto office [properties] and, albeit a wonderful place to be, too much Canada,” said OMERS president and CEO Paul Haggis at Wednesday’s Toronto Real Estate Forum.
Oxford has been repositioning its property portfolio and recently made investments in shopping centres in both California and Germany.
Funds are also starting to invest outside of familiar territory like North America and Europe, and turning to emerging markets, such as Brazil. “You’ve got PSP, you’ve got Cadillac Fairview, you’ve got [Ivanhoe] Cambridge all focused on a market that’s never been on anyone’s radar screen or at least not in large measure,” said Blake Hutcheson, chairman and president of CB Richard Ellis Limited.
“Certainly, everybody’s on the search to try and find places that nobody else is,” said Paul Campbell, president and CEO of SITQ.
However, he doesn’t think Canadian pension funds should completely turn their back on their home turf. “For a Canadian looking at Canada, I think some of us—who are always looking too much at the outside—should maybe open our eyes and be a little more receptive to the opportunities in Canada.”
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