Donald Trump’s

tariff actions

are not having much of an impact on property decisions for

major Canadian institutional investors

because they don’t see the same opportunities elsewhere in the world, an audience at a Toronto real estate conference heard this week.

“The United States remains by far the

largest investment market

, and by far the most liquid market,” said Pierre Cherki, executive managing director of real estate with the

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan

, during a panel discussion at the Global Property Market conference.

On April 2, Trump announced a series of global tariffs on import duties, branding the policy change Liberation Day. The baseline tariff was 10 per cent for all countries.

But Cherki said it would be tough to imagine where the pension fund would deploy the $30 billion it now owns in real estate without being present

south of the border

.

The possibility of moving some of the pension fund’s assets, which total about $270 billion, to Europe is more complicated than it seems.

“Europe is a very fragmented market, and it’s not one large market; it is a lot of different markets,” he said.

Moderator Dietrich Heidtmann, managing director of business development of New York-based U.S.

investment firm Pretium

, said Liberation Day “shook” the sector.

While Cherki said it didn’t cause his pension fund to move money around dramatically, it did cause it to reevaluate how it establishes risk.

“There is a

dynamic between Canada and the U.S.

, but we are focused on providing pensions to teachers in Ontario, and for us it’s an additional layer of risk and how we look at investment,” he said.

Heidtmann wanted to know whether changes in tariffs had changed Teachers’ investment horizons, and was told not really.

Andrew Croll, managing director and head of global real estate investments at TD Asset Management, said the changes in the tariff environment have necessitated a refocus on exit strategies.

He said

relying on property valuations

to drive investment returns might not work because valuations are “out of your control” today and may not rise.

“But I don’t think anything has changed other than there is confidence around getting trade deals and there is the emotional response to the chaos that has come out of the U.S.,” said Croll. “If anything, it may create opportunities.”

Janice Lin, head of real estate in Canada for

investment firm Blackstone

, which manages more than US$1 trillion in assets, said her firm’s 40-year track record has given it access to data that helps it better understand real estate markets.

“When there is a lot of volatility in the world and even when the U.S. government shut down and stopped providing government altogether, what we really relied upon on are the results from all of our companies,” said Lin, noting that Blackstone has 12,000 individual assets and 60 portfolio companies in the real estate sector.

Randolph Brown, chief investment officer and head of insurance asset management

at Sun Life

, said there is an opportunity to get “good assets at low prices,” which the group did in the office sector recently.

“We just picked up our first office asset in Canada in a long time,” Brown told the panel, without providing details.

In an interview with the Financial Post, Brown said the building is in Vancouver and is a “quality” office building, rather than an older B- or C-class building.

“It was the right asset at the right price in the right market. That market has one of the lowest vacancies in North America,” said Brown. “We have developed (offices) in Toronto, but we haven’t gone out and bought one (in years).”

  • Why some of Canada’s biggest pensions are slamming the brakes on U.S. real estate investment
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• Email: gmarr@postmedia.com