Alberta Investment Management Corp. is opening its first Asian office, but the Edmonton-based fund manager says it will steer well clear of China to focus instead on markets with less geopolitical risk.
“We really are very under-represented in Asia. You know, we have less in Asia than we do in Alberta,” Siddall said in an interview.Siddall said the Singapore office opening is part of a larger push by AIMCo towards greater diversification globally. The fund manager – which invests in public and private markets, real estate and infrastructure – already has offices in Calgary, Toronto, London and Luxembourg, in addition to Edmonton, and will be opening a New York City office soon.
“We have no rule of thumb, we have no target ... but it’s more than we’re doing now, and it’s a fair bit more.” However, Canadian pension funds have also been under scrutiny recently for their exposure to China, particularly given questions around the health of that country’s economy as well as its ongoing tensions with the West.
Siddall said geopolitics is a significant risk factor in investing, and is the reason AIMCo has chosen to focus on the comparatively safe Singapore market rather than setting its sights on the world’s second-largest economy.