“There’s a lot of optimism of where China is in its interest rate policy cycle, and the benefits that will bring for the region as well as the kind of gradual opening up,” she added.
AustralianSuper A$272 billion ($184 billion)
AustralianSuper Pty Ltd. Chief Investment Officer Mark Delaney is taking a cautious approach. His pension firm, the largest in Australia, began turning defensive late last year, reducing its exposure to listed equities and credit.
“We have built up our positions in cash and more recently fixed interest, things that we think could benefit from a downturn,” Delaney told Bloomberg. Over the next 12 months, the fund is unlikely to materially change asset allocation and remains concerned about private markets.
“What we’re most cautious about is the asset classes (in) which values haven’t adjusted yet, and you might put private equity into that category for example, and potentially property and maybe infrastructure,” he said. “The share market probably has done more than half of its adjustments from the peak to what we think is likely to be the trough.”
Instead, the fund expects to be hunting for new investments when good opportunities begin to emerge in about 12 months.
“Most likely the first place we’ll go will be to deploy capital into fixed interest, as they respond to the end of the tightening cycle and eventual easing cycle,” he said. “From that, if share prices continue to adjust there will be opportunities in the share market and also by and large in the credit markets around the same time.”
Ontario Teachers Pension Plan C$242.5 billion ($183 billion)
Chief Executive Officer Jo Taylor is looking to mining assets, with rare earth minerals and metals a key target.
“Rare metals. Because they are just that -- they are scarce and there aren’t that many that aren’t Chinese owned,” he said. “You can have the commodity rather than some sort of traded index, it’s not a big market.”
That means targeting copper producers in Canada and Chile, lithium from Latin America and finding sources of cobalt.
“We’re looking for partners on a private basis; could be a project. We’ve done some with Glencore and others in the past,” he said. “Even if we go very active on this it’s not going to be that we move the market on this.”
And he’s also scouring markets to find scarcity trades more broadly, from battery manufacturing chains and chip-makers to water, food and Indian businesses where there are relatively few scaled business. In August, OTPP bought a majority stake in Sahyadri Hospitals Ltd. as part of its first private equity buyout in India.
Partners Group $131 billion
Partners Group Holding AG Chairman Steffen Meister is mindful of the suffering to people and businesses in recent years. But from a business perspective, now is a good time to strike deals, he said.
“Strictly speaking about business and opportunities, this is the time when you have the opportunities because the economy is not disappearing,” he said.