The British Columbia Investment Management Corp. is reporting an annual return of 7.5 per cent, or $17.4 billion, as at March 31, 2024, up from 3.5 per cent the previous fiscal year, according to its latest annual report.
The report, which reflects the results from the investments of its six largest pension clients — the BC Hydro Pension Plan, the College Pension Plan, the Municipal Pension Plan, the Public Service Pension Plan, the Teachers’ Pension Plan and the WorkSafeBC Pension Plan — noted its gross assets under management increased to $250.4 billion from $233 billion.
By March 31, the BCI’s net AUM totalled $229.5 billion, with investment gains contributing $16.5 billion net of all fees to this growth. Over a 10-year period, the BCI has generated a 7.8 per cent annualized return.
Read: BCI’s net assets grow 3.5% in fiscal 2023, led by alternatives
All asset classes generated positive returns apart from real estate equity (negative five per cent), where sustained market headwinds affected valuations. In the fixed income portfolio, private debt (13.3 per cent) led the way, followed by short-term bonds (5.2 per cent) and nominal bonds (1.9 per cent). Its funding program, which includes the BCI’s clients’ investment liabilities achieved through government bond repurchase agreements and unsecured bond issuance, returned 5.2 per cent.
Overall, the results were impacted by the strong performance of the public equities portfolio. Global stocks rose 26.5 per cent return for the year followed by Canadian equities (14.6 per cent) and emerging market equities (10.1 per cent).
In terms of the private market portfolio at the BCI, allocations to infrastructure and renewable resources (seven per cent), real estate debt (6.9 per cent) and private equity (six per cent) all rose during the fiscal year.
“We delivered solid absolute results even through challenged markets this year,” said Gordon J. Fyfe, the BCI’s chief executive officer and chief investment officer, in a press release. “This was not a coincidence. Rather, it speaks to our team’s diligent risk approach and prudent liquidity management, which provided us with resilience and capability to capture market dislocations and deploy capital.”