Canadian investor sees China as strong investment market

TORONTO - Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and Goodman Group Monday announced a $1.25 billion increase in their equity allocation to the Goodman China Logistics Partnership (GCLP), seeing China as strong investment market.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), headquartered in Toronto, is a global professional investment management organization, and Goodman Group is an Australian integrated commercial and industrial property group.

According to the announcement, the equity allocation will be made on an 80:20 basis, with CPPIB committing $1 billion and Goodman committing $250 million.

"We continue to see China as a strong investment market for a long-term investor like CPPIB. In particular, the fundamentals of the Chinese logistics and e-commerce sectors which underpin the growth in demand for prime logistics facilities remain compelling," said Jimmy Phua, managing director and head of Real Estate Investments at CPPIB Asia.

The GCLP was established by CPPIB and Goodman in 2009 to own and develop logistics assets in the Chinese mainland. The GCLP is seeing continued strong demand in core logistics markets, including in the greater Shanghai and Beijing regions and key western China markets, driven primarily by e-commerce and domestic consumption.

CPPIB invests the funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) to pay current benefits on behalf of 18 million contributors and beneficiaries. In order to build a diversified portfolio of CPP assets, CPPIB invests in public equities, private equities, real estate, infrastructure and fixed income instruments.

On Sept 30, 2015, the CPP Fund totalled C$272.9 billion.