The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) reported its largest-ever quarterly net income on Friday as the pension fund manager posted gains through a broad range of investments.

The fund’s net income for the quarter ending June 30 was $60.2 billion and its net assets increased to $863.6 billion from $793.3 billion in the previous quarter when including $10.1 billion in net transfers from the Canada Pension Plan.

“While a strong quarter is welcome, a single quarter isn’t how we measure success,” CPPIB chief executive John Graham said in a statement on Friday. “Our focus remains on delivering the long-term investment performance required to help sustain the Canada Pension Plan for generations of contributors and beneficiaries.”

The fund had a quarterly net return of 7.5 per cent, which was the highest since the fourth quarter of 2015. It also generated a 10-year annualized net return of 9.4 per cent.

The fund’s quarterly growth was due to strong performances in sectors related to artificial intelligence , public equities and the energy sector, as well as an improving investor sentiment in general, CPPIB said.

Fixed-income investments also contributed to returns, as did foreign exchange movements, primarily from a stronger United States dollar , it said.

“Our investment portfolio remains well positioned to benefit from favourable public equity market performance, with meaningful contributions across our globally diversified portfolio,” Graham said.

During the quarter, CPPIB invested US$1.75 billion to support global investment firm EQT AB’s strategy to build AI infrastructure and committed $1 billion to acquire a majority stake in Tarchon Energy’s 1.4-gigawatt subsea and online power link between Germany and the United Kingdom.

In May, Graham said the Canadian government’s newly created sovereign wealth fund and its openness to the privatization of large assets such as airports could present interesting investment opportunities for Canada’s largest pension fund.

“Airports, pipelines, other types of infrastructure, these are well-established assets for institutional investors such as us, and we have all those assets in the portfolio today in some form,” he said at the time. “These are assets that would generate a lot of interest from institutional investors.”

However, if Ottawa hopes to attract interest from institutional investors such as CPPIB, Graham said it’s crucial for the government to clearly articulate what the investments are intended to “solve” and ensure pensions are given sufficient control.

“If you’re coming in with large amounts of capital, you’d want to have some governance rights and ability to control your own destiny,” he said on Thursday. “So the devil’s in the details. We’re hopeful that this will all get fleshed out in the near term and (we’ll) be able to see some interesting opportunities.”

  • Brookfield and CPPIB team up to buy US$5.2 billion industrial REIT
  • Ontario Teachers’ pension plan posts 9.5% return, boosted by $8.7 billion SpaceX stake

• Email: nkarim@postmedia.com