The Canada Pension Plan Fund posted a 1.8-per-cent return in the final three months of 2009, thanks mostly to rising stocks.
The gain boosted the fund's total assets to $123.9-billion, continuing its comeback from its recent low-water mark of $105.5-billion on March 31. Still, the rebound was at a much slower pace than in the preceding two quarters as equity market gains slowed and other assets, such as Canadian bonds, posted negative returns.
The CPP Investment Board generated $2.2-billion in investment income in the quarter, the board said in a release. The quarterly performance brings the fund's rate of return for the first nine months of its fiscal year to 14 per cent, which translates to $15.2-billion in investment income over that period.
The quarter posted "hardly the buoyant double-digit market returns we had seen in the previous two quarters but nicely positive over all," said David Denison, CPPIB's chief executive officer, who suggested that similar returns in coming quarters would be a win.
"A couple of per cent a quarter on a sustainable basis is a good outcome going ahead," he said.
Mr. Denison said the fund will continue to focus more on investments such as real estate, infrastructure, private equity and private debt, rather than on publicly traded stock.
"We just see the key valuation opportunities that investing in those areas represent."