Best Year Ever? Canada Pension Plan Touts $45B Gain, but Wait ….

Assets in the CPP grew by 18.3 per cent in the year ending March 31, reported the Canada Pension Plan on May 21.

That is a $45.5 billion dollar gain, taking CPP Fund assets to $264.6 billion.

Not bad. A bottle (or two) of 1989 Louise Pommery Cuvee Brut champagne may be in order, especially since $40.6 billion of the growth came from investments, and only $4.9 billion from contributions.

While we applaud the CPP for their stellar results, we all need to remember that a large portion of CPP assets are invested outside of Canada. This means that the value of those assets rise when the Canadian dollar declines against foreign currencies where the CPP holds investments.

Since the Canadian dollar did poorly over the CPP’s 2015 financial year, this accounted for $7.8 billion of the overall growth.