Allocators Desk
What the cross-house panel shows
Seven houses, eight asset classes, one curve. Where the published numbers sit, where the houses disagree, and what carries a caveat.
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The Allocators Desk
Hires, mandates, manager changes, asset-mix shifts. Curated daily; named bylines on the long pieces.
Allocators Desk
How the CME Tracker works.
Most published capital-market expectations come from one house with one process. A single number from a single methodology is a starting point; what helps an allocator more is the spread between methodologies on the same asset. The CME Tracker publishes that cross-engine view today, and will add the cross-house panel as the external publications are folded in. Here is how the methodology works.
Allocators Desk
The Canadian buy-side reads US-centric coverage by default.
The Canadian institutional allocator's reading list is, with two or three exceptions, written by people in New York and London for an audience in New York and London. The cross-border CAD lens, when it surfaces, is somebody else's framing of a Canadian story.
Allocators Desk
The Canadian asset-manager independence shrinkage.
BMO announced its acquisition of Burgundy Asset Management on June 19, 2025 for approximately $625 million in BMO shares, with the deal completed November 3, 2025. The transaction is the most recent in a multi-year pattern of Canadian banks absorbing the country's leading independent investment counsel firms. This piece reads the deal, the cohort context (Jarislowsky Fraser at Scotiabank, MD Financial at Scotiabank, CI Financial going private), and what the trend leaves on the table for the few remaining independents.
Allocators Desk
The Canadian Big-Eight pensions, side by side.
CPP Investments closed fiscal 2026 at $793.3 billion. CDPQ closed 2025 at CAD $517.3 billion. PSP closed fiscal 2025 at $299.7 billion. OTPP closed 2025 at $279.4 billion. BCI closed fiscal 2025 at $251.6 billion in net AUM. AIMCo closed 2025 at $194.7 billion. OMERS closed 2025 at $145.2 billion. HOOPP closed 2025 at $132 billion. Together: roughly $2.6 trillion in Canadian institutional capital, with the most recent year's returns ranging from 6.0% to 13.2%.
Allocators Desk
The Canadian institutional buy-side, in primary numbers.
CPP Investments closed fiscal 2026 at $793.3 billion, Ontario Teachers' closed 2025 at $279.4 billion, and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec closed 2025 at $517.3 billion. Underneath those, the Statistics Canada Survey of Financial Security puts the median Canadian family net worth at $519,700. This piece reads the top of the institutional pyramid against the household substrate the column will return to.
Allocators Desk
Welcome to TheBuySide.
What this publication is, who it is for, and what readers can expect from the first issue forward.
Allocators Desk
The late-2025 family-office research wave.
Within roughly five months of 2025, UBS, Citi, BNY Wealth, J.P. Morgan, and the RBC plus Campden Wealth pair each published a major family-office survey. Read individually, each tells a different story. Read together, they describe a buy-side that is reducing return expectations, leaning further into private markets and active management, accelerating AI adoption, and quietly turning to succession planning at a pace none of the prior years' surveys flagged.