Exit opps from Canadian pensions

Hi all, trying to understand my exit opps after working a year at a Canadian pension fund as an investment analyst, doing GP work. I plan to stay for atleast another year but I'm just curious where people from Canadian pensions (think Cadillac Fairview, Oxford, PSP) are in demand?Would love to hear what you all have seen in the industry. TIA!

17 Comments
 

Are you on the lp or gp side. Cadillac and Oxford does direct deals whereas PSP doesn’t.

 

I would say you can move on to a plethora of GP shops/development shops. In Canada, you will be handicapped by the small market as the pay is just bad in general. Pension plans pay on the upper range in real estate within Canada.

Only shops I can think of that pay more than the pension at the GP level are Brookfield, Tricon, KingSett, Centrecourt, Camrost Felcorp and other smaller developers which give your equity.

May I ask why you’re seeking to leave a pension? Most people I know try to exit there.

 

Given you're at one of the shops that does their own GP work, then you can exit literally anywhere - to a smaller developer/REPE or to another pension fund that serves solely as an LP.

Why do you want to leave though? The pension funds are typically seen as the exit op, not as a training ground. Their comp is extremely competitive assuming you're not off to run your own shop, benefits are by far the best in the industry, and WLB is typically excellent.

The only reason I could see someone wanting to leave is because you want to work on more interesting, higher risk deals.

 

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