Canadian short-term investments have largest increase among domestic asset categories in the first quarter at 10 percent
The market value of assets held by Canadian trusteed pension funds had a quarterly increase of 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2023. Year-over-year, the value was down by 0.4 percent, says Statistics Canada.
The data shows that trusteed pension funds had the market value of their assets rise by $40.9 billion from the previous quarter reaching $2.2 trillion. However, year-over-year, their value declined by $9.6 billion.
Public and private sector plans see Q1 asset increase
The value of assets that were held by public sector plans had increased by 1.0 percent ($17.5 billion) in the first quarter, reaching $1.7 trillion while it was down by 0.3 percent ($5.9 billion), year-over year. Private sector assets had increased by 5.5 percent ($23.4 billion) in Q1, amounting to $451.0 billion while it had decreased by 0.8 percent ($3.8 billion) year-over year.
The proportion of total assets of trusteed pension funds from the public sector saw a decline in the quarter to 79.4 percent from the 80.1 percent in the previous quarter while this was an increase from the 79.3 percent year-over-year.
Canadian trusteed pension funds reached a net income of $15.6 billion in the first quarter, which was a decrease from the $17.9 billion in the previous quarter and the $24.7 billion year-over-year.
The total revenue decreased by 8.8 percent ($3.7 billion) in the quarter and 24 percent from $51.2 billion year-over-year. Expenditures had fallen by 6.1 percent ($1.5 billion) in Q1 and 11.9 percent ($3.2 billion) year-over-year.
Largest asset classes show gains
Accounting for 91.3 percent of the total market value of assets, the five largest asset categories had seen an increase in value in the first quarter compared to the previous quarter. Equities, which were the largest asset category, had the largest dollar increase with 1.1 percent or $9.2 billion. This was followed by other assets with 6.2 percent ($9.2 billion), infrastructure with 4.6 percent ($9.1 billion), bonds with 1.0 percent ($5.5 billion), and real estate with 0.6 percent ($1.7 billion).
Domestic assets had increased by 1.9 percent ($16.6 billion) compared to the previous quarter, reaching $900 billion. However, it was down by 4.7 percent ($44.9 billion) year-over-year.
Canadian short-term investments had the largest increase among domestic asset categories in the first quarter with 10 percent or $8.3 billion. Bonds followed with 1.2 percent ($5.3 billion) while real estate and infrastructure also saw an increase with 1.3 percent ($1.6 billion) and 3.5 percent (1.6 billion) respectively. Compared to that, Canadian equities declined by 0.1 percent ($0.2 billion).
Meanwhile, foreign assets rose by 1.4 percent ($14.6 billion) in the first quarter of 2023 and 5.2 percent ($52 billion) year-over year.
Equities had a 1.5 percent increase ($9.4 billion), which was the largest increase among foreign asset categories. This was followed by infrastructure with 4.8 percent ($7.6 billion), bonds with 0.2 percent ($0.2 billion), and real estate with a less than 0.1 percent increase ($0.1 billion). Only foreign short-term assets had decreased with a 19.9 percent drop ($2.6 billion).
The value of assets of nationality unknown had risen to 11.2 percent of total assets in the quarter, with a value of $245.1 billion. This was only 11 percent of all assets in the previous quarter while this was 11.9 percent year-over-year.
