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* Funds concerned about 'Brexit' impact on City of London
* Canadian funds have been 2nd biggest UK real estate buyers
* Retreat raises concerns over inbound UK investment
By Matt Scuffham
TORONTO, March 17 (Reuters) - Some of Canada's top pension
funds, among the world's biggest investors in British real
estate and infrastructure, are holding back on UK deals until
after Britons vote on whether to leave the European Union,
according to senior executives.
These funds, which together manage more than C$700 billion
($524 billion) in assets, fear valuations could drop if Britain
chooses to leave the bloc and have particular concerns about the
impact on London's financial district, the executives said.
There is no precedent for an economy as big as Britain's
leaving a trade bloc, and the rival campaigns paint contrasting
pictures of what quitting the EU might mean for its trade.
Pro-Europe campaigners say banks and other financial
institutions could pull operations out of the City of London if
they cannot access critical EU markets.
An executive at one of Canada's biggest public pension
funds, who spoke off the record due to the sensitivity of the
issue, said the risks posed by the June 23 vote were part of the
reason it passed on a recent deal for an office property in
London's financial district.
"London is the financial centre of Europe, but if that
changes, the whole trajectory is different. That's become a
factor in our thinking," he said.
The retreat by Canadian investors could be harmful to the
British economy and raises questions about whether other
international investors will also lose their appetite for UK
assets.
Canadian institutions have been the second biggest
international investors in UK real estate over the past three
years, with direct investments peaking in 2015. They are also
prominent infrastructure investors.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), which
manages money for the country's main government pension fund,
had C$15.2 billion invested in Britain at the end of March 2015,
almost 6 percent of its assets at that time.
Fund executives say they will still pursue exceptional
one-off opportunities, pointing to the recent purchase of London
City Airport by a group including three Canadian funds. But they
note a stringent criteria would be applied to take into account
the so-called Brexit risk, which would affect pricing.
"We'd want to go through what the different potential
scenarios are - how the situations might evolve from a
political, regulatory and economic perspective," an executive at
one of Canada's top three pension funds said.
London City Airport was bought by a consortium including the
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP), the Ontario Municipal
Employees Retirement System (OMERS) and the Alberta Investment
Management Corporation (AIMCo) for more than 2 billion pounds
($2.82 billion).
AIMCo Chief Executive Kevin Uebelein, speaking to Reuters
after the deal was announced, said that Brexit concerns were
taken into account when negotiating.
"The prospect of Brexit was not unknown to us as we crunched
those numbers. You factor those things into your investments,"
he said.
Jonathan Simmons, chief financial officer at OMERS, which
owns the high-speed rail link between London and the Channel
Tunnel in partnership with (OTPP), said last month his fund was
looking at how it can offset the risk to its UK holdings.
"We're focused on what's going on right now around Brexit,
and of course we are monitoring that and we're thinking about
how we hedge our positions," Simmons told a media briefing.
Brexit is not the only factor weighing on the market for
London real estate.
Real estate agents say Chinese, Russian and Middle Eastern
investors are cooling on London's luxury property market as a
result of factors including the low price of oil, the Russian
rouble's collapse, slowing Chinese economic growth and higher
taxes for foreign buyers.
($1 = 1.3347 Canadian dollars)
($1 = 0.7102 pounds)
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Canada pension funds and the 'Brexit' vote http://tmsnrt.rs/1XqVJkW
Brexit or Bremain? http://tmsnrt.rs/1Ke31HF
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