Performance

The Canadian pension grew its infrastructure holdings to $8.3bn, or 8.2% of its total assets, over the year to end March.

The revised investment mandate follows a federal decision to delay withdrawals from the fund for at least 10 years.

The $317bn pension manager said increased bond yield and asset appreciation is affecting how investors view the asset class in the current cycle.

However, infrastructure is still just 1% of the pension's portfolio, compared to 9% for real estate and 0.6% for forestland.

The $119bn pension said new investments and higher valuations were ‘partly offset’ by a strong Canadian dollar in 2016.

Performance for the Canadian pension plan’s private portfolio, which continues to grow, is in line with last year’s.

The 21-mile highway project has faced repeated delays and disputes over the payment of subcontractors.

Allocation to infrastructure increased to 17 % in 2016 as the Canadian pension’s total net asset topped C$85bn.

Despite falling short of last year’s $250m investment target, the US pension said it still plans to allocate 4% of its overall portfolio to the asset class by 2020.

The $2.29bn Aussie super fund singled out its partnership with Whitehelm Capital as ‘key’ to the outperformance.