The first half of the year gave Canada's second-largest pension fund a mixed bag.
Stocks did the heavy lifting. Private equity did not.
The Montreal-based fund, which manages pension money, posted a 5.1% return over the first six months of its fiscal year. That brought its total holdings to C$552 billion, which works out to about US$396 billion.
The number sounds solid until you check the benchmark. The fund's own target index returned 7.5% over the same stretch, which means the fund trailed its goal by a noticeable margin.
The bright spot came from public markets. The fund's equity portfolio gained 14.6% in the first half, its strongest six-month showing in two decades. A heavy tilt toward technology stocks paid off as the AI-fueled rally lifted big names.
But the same AI wave that lifted stocks knocked down the fund's private holdings. The private-equity portfolio, worth roughly C$85 billion when the fiscal year began, fell 4.3%.
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Two of the fund's major positions took hard hits. Shares of WSP Global, an engineering firm, fell 29% over the six months. Alstom, the train maker, dropped 40%. Both are tied to infrastructure and construction, sectors where investors have worried that AI could disrupt traditional ways of working.
Vincent Delisle, who heads liquid markets at the fund, pushed back on that worry. He said of WSP: "You could certainly argue the opposite of WSP being a victim here in terms of how it can make them work faster, more productive, gain more client base." He added that he is "doubtful that AI is destructive to that many companies and industries."
Other parts of the portfolio held up better. Real assets, which include infrastructure and property, gained 5.5%. Fixed income edged up just 1.7%, with long-term US interest rates trimming what would have been bigger gains.
The fund also made a notable move during the period, partnering with Blackstone and others to buy a 25% interest in Air Canada's Aeroplan loyalty program. The deal was worth C$2.5 billion.
CEO Charles Emond called it a win-win. "We looked into it and saw it was a win-win," he said. The deal helped Air Canada "clean up its balance sheet and allowed it to invest in its fleet, and for us, it meant stable revenue, an asset with the number-one market share, very good margins and strong cash flow."
Loyalty programs have become attractive investments because they generate steady, predictable cash flow. Aeroplan has a dominant position in Canada's travel market, which makes it a reliable earner.
Looking ahead, Emond listed the usual suspects as risks: Middle East conflict, inflation, interest rates, and whether the AI investment boom can keep its momentum.
"The enthusiasm surrounding AI is based on expectations - which are already very high - regarding both demand and the profitability of investments that have already been made," he said. "So we're in a situation where risks are multiplying, yet we're also seeing record inflows from investors being deployed into risky assets."
That is a careful way of saying the market is priced for perfection. AI companies need to keep delivering huge profits to justify their valuations, and any stumble could ripple through portfolios like this one.
For everyday investors, the lesson is about balance. The fund's 10-year annualized return of 7.5% matches its benchmark almost exactly, which shows how hard it is to beat the market consistently even with billions of dollars and professional managers. The first half of this year shows the same thing from a different angle: public stocks can surge while private bets sink, and neither tells the whole story on its own.
Your portfolio can learn something from that. Diversification does not mean every piece wins at once. It means the pieces that win can carry the ones that do not.
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