Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan earned a 6.7-per-cent return in 2025 but missed its internal benchmark for performance by a wide margin as it marked down struggling private equity and real estate assets.
The plan’s investment gains were bolstered by its publicly traded stock portfolio, which increased in value by 15 per cent, as well as its holdings in gold. Its smaller venture growth arm was up 30 per cent on rising valuations at companies such as SpaceX and Databricks.
But Teachers’ private equity portfolio lost 5.3 per cent, against an 18-per-cent benchmark that is weighted toward public stocks. And its real estate portfolio lost 3.1 per cent.
Overall, Teachers fell short of its 11.7-per-cent benchmark by 5 percentage points – a difference of $12-billion of potential investment income.
Chief executive officer Jo Taylor attributed the plan’s poor results in private equity and real estate in part to “broad sector headwinds,” in a statement.
“We responded with disciplined year-end valuation adjustments to reflect current market conditions, which weighed on performance,” he said.
Teachers also lost $1.2-billion on foreign currency moves, in particular the depreciation of the U.S. dollar against the Canadian dollar, but said it softened the impact by managing its currency exposure during the year.
Over 10 years, Teachers has had an average annual return of 6.8 per cent. Its assets increased to $279.4-billion, from $266.3-billion a year earlier.
The plan is 111 per cent funded, with a $31.2-billion preliminary funding surplus as of the start of 2026, meaning it has more money on hand than it expects to pay out in pensions to members.
“Despite the uncertain environment, our investment business delivered strong dollars earned and was able to successfully realize some key assets while proactively working to address challenging areas of the portfolio,” Mr. Taylor said.
Teachers manages pensions for about 346,000 members in Ontario, including working and retired teachers.