By Ketki Saxena
Investing.com – The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), historically one of the top performers amongst Canada’s big pension funds, posted a loss in 2022 for the first time in 14 years. The plan posted a loss of 8.60% on its investment portfolio, cutting its assets to $103.7 billion at year end.
HOOP's mandate targets having about 40% of its portfolio in bonds and about 25% in public equities, which Chief investment officer Michael Wissell noted were “the area that did the most poorly” in 2022.
HOOPP’s bond portfolio lost 17.8% 2022, while its public equities portfolio lost 12.49%. Its credit portfolio eked out a gain of 0.95%
Real estate gained 4.01 per cent and Infrastructure returned 9.43%. Private equity gained 11.04%, buoyed by a number of profitable exits in HOOPP holdings.
Compared with comparable Canadian pension funds, HOOPP has a lesser focus on private asset classes like infrastructure, real estate and private equity, which contribute to That asset approximately 20% of its portfolio.
Mr. Wissell said that despite the overall loss, HOOPP beat its benchmark – what a similar portfolio should have been expected to return – by 4.61 percentage points.
HOOPP’s 10-year annualized return as of the end of 2022 was 8.35%.
The plan also dipped to its lowest level of funding since 2014. However, the funding ratio, which compares current assets with the future benefits it owes members stood at 117% compared to 120% this time last year.