Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is looking to further boost its exposure to private credit and has been in discussions with banks about acquiring loans, Chief Executive Officer Jo Taylor said.
(Bloomberg) — Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is looking to further boost its exposure to private credit and has been in discussions with banks about acquiring loans, Chief Executive Officer Jo Taylor said.
“We’ve been talking to banks who are probably looking to share some of their portfolios, to see whether or not we can do some sort of joint deals where we can acquire a larger portfolio on attractive terms,” Taylor said during an interview with Bloomberg Television on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California.
The pension fund, one of Canada’s largest institutional investors, increased its credit portfolio to a record $26 billion in 2022, boosting bets on levered loans and high-yield corporate debt as yields got richer. A year earlier, Ontario Teachers’ had about $18 billion in credit investments.
The fund is also debating taking on more credit exposure to private equity deals, he said. “I think we’d largely look at private equity to do more credit if we felt that the equity returns didn’t look as attractive,” Taylor said. The Ontario fund was one of the first large Canadian pension managers to get deeply involved as a private equity owner of assets. At one point was even the major shareholder of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club, though it’s since exited that position.
The C$247 billion ($182 billion) fund set up a team in London last year to focus on private credit opportunities, part of a broader push to deepen its talent, Chief Investment Officer Ziad Hindo told Bloomberg earlier this year.
–With assistance from Romaine Bostick.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.