Canada’s OMERS Promotes Ashish Goyal to Head of Asia Pacific

OMERS, the biggest pension fund manager in the Canadian province of Ontario and the 44th largest in the world, has elevated Ashish Goyal to the newly created post of executive vice president and head of Asia Pacific, based in Singapore.

Goyal’s mandate is to lead the $91 billion fund’s strategic growth aspirations across its various asset classes in the region, including the establishment of new relationships and partnerships, OMERS said in a release. He will report directly to Ralph Berg, the group’s London-based chief investment officer, after both men assumed their roles on 1 April.

Goyal had most recently headed the OMERS Asia Pacific capital markets business since joining the organisation in July 2019 from NN Investment Partners in Singapore, before that firm was acquired by Goldman Sachs. He has more than three decades of work experience at global asset managers throughout the region.

“Ashish has a wealth of investment, leadership and operational experience that will be invaluable to accelerating OMERS ambitious growth plans in the Asia Pacific region,” Berg said.

Investment Veteran

Before serving as head of emerging-market equities for almost five years at NN Investment Partners, formerly known as ING Investment Management, Goyal spent 16 years in various roles at Eastspring Investments, an affiliate of Britain’s Prudential Plc. Those Singapore postings followed a four-year spell as a portfolio manager for India’s ICICI Prudential AMC.

A chartered financial analyst, Goyal earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering in Pune and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.

“It is a privilege to work every day on behalf of the more than 550,000 members of the OMERS pension plan,” Goyal said. “OMERS places great importance on partnerships and collaborating with others to mutual benefit, and I look forward to further advancing our global relationships.”

Berg served as executive vice president and global head of capital markets for two years until his recent promotion to oversee all investment activities at OMERS. He joined the Canadian fund in 2013 from Credit Suisse, where he spent seven years advising clients in M&A, IPO and structured finance transactions.

In his earlier career, Berg worked on the energy team at Deutsche Bank in New York and London for more than a decade. He holds a law degree from the University of Buenos Aires.

Regional Expansion

OMERS opened its Sydney office in 2014 and its Singapore office in early 2018. At the end of 2022, 11 percent of the plan’s portfolio was invested in Asia Pacific.

In addition to being the largest institutional investor in Hong Kong-listed industrial specialist ESR, OMERS has regional interests in Rokin, a Chinese cold chain logistics firm, and in build-to-rent real estate platform Indi, fund management platform Investa Office Management and commercial property partnership Investa Gateway Offices, all in Australia.

OMERS’s real estate arm, Oxford Properties, has made a series of moves to beef up its team in the past year, including the hiring of former Ivanhoe Cambridge boss Daniel Fournier as executive chairman. Fournier took up the new leadership post at the start of this month, succeeding Michael Turner.

In Asia, Oxford added former Apollo Global Management principal Chirag Gupta and longtime Ontario crew member Shane Miyama to the firm’s Singapore-based team in mid-2022.