OMERS

"Omers" redirects here. For the ancient Israelite unit of dry measure, see Omer (unit).

OMERS Administration Corporation

Company type	Statutory corporation
Industry	Pension fund
Founded	1962 (1962)
Headquarters	Toronto, Ontario , Canada
Key people	Blake Hutcheson (CEO) George Cooke (Board chair, Administration Corporation) Michael Rolland (CEO, Sponsors Corporation) Frank Ramagnano and Barry Brown (Board co-chairs, Sponsors Corporation)
Total assets	C$109 billion (2019)
Divisions	OMERS Infrastructure OMERS Capital Markets OMERS Private Equity Oxford Properties
Website	omers.com

The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) is a Canadian pension fund created by Ontario provincial statute in 1962 to manage the retirement benefits of all local government employees in the Canadian province of Ontario. It has become one of the largest institutional investors in Canada. As of December 2019, OMERS had C$109 billion in net investment assets. OMERS serves 1,000 participating employers and more than half a million active, deferred and retired employees. OMERS members are employed by municipalities, school boards, transit systems, electrical utilities, emergency services and children's aid societies.

Structure

OMERS is governed by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Act, 2006, an Ontario law which superseded the older Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System Act.

Under the 2006 law, OMERS is composed of two statutory corporations:

• The Administration Corporation provides strategic, risk and operational management in serving Plan members and employers, collecting contributions and paying pensions, and investing the Plan funds.
• The Sponsors Corporation provides strategic and risk oversight, and decision-making with regard to designing pension benefits, setting contribution levels, and determining the composition of the two OMERS Boards.

Investments

OMERS has four major investment divisions:

• OMERS Infrastructure, which invests in public infrastructure
• OMERS Capital Markets, which manages investment in the public markets, such as government bonds and stock in publicly traded companies
• OMERS Private Equity, which concentrates on private equity investment
• Oxford Properties, which owns real estate such as office buildings and shopping centres

OMERS Infrastructure

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

Outline of OMERS Infrastructure assets:

• Associated British Ports — handles nearly a quarter of the U.K.'s seaborne trade by weight
• Alectra — (2.96%) municipal electricity utility serving over one million customers in Alliston, Aurora, Barrie, Beeton, Brampton, Bradford, Guelph, Hamilton, Markham, Mississauga, Penetanguishene, Richmond Hill, Rockwood, St. Catharines, Thornton, Tottenham and Vaughan in Ontario
• BridgeTex — a crude oil pipeline between the Permian Basin in West Texas and the Gulf Coast, with a capacity of 440,000 barrels per day
• Bruce Power — a company running eight nuclear power reactors owned by Ontario Hydro with a capacity of 6,300 MW.
• CannAmm — a provider of drug and alcohol testing and occupational health services in Canada
• Caruna — a large electricity distribution network in Finland supplying almost 635,000 customers with 12,600 TWh of electricity distributed annually
• Chicago Skyway — manages, operates and maintains the 12.5-kilometre (7.8-mile) Chicago Skyway toll road under a concession agreement which runs until 2104
• CLH — provides refined oil products transportation and storage in Spain and the U.K.
• Confederation Bridge — a 12.9-km bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island
• Detroit River Tunnel — the DRTP owns a cross-border rail tunnel linking Detroit, Michigan and southwestern Ontario, a part of the route between the Port of Montreal and Chicago
• DynaLife — an Edmonton-based medical laboratory servicing northern and central Alberta with more than 18 million tests annually.
• Ellevio — Sweden's second largest electricity distributor supplying approximately 900,000 customers
• GNL Quintero — LNG regasification terminal supplying Santiago, Chile and surrounding region
• Indinfravit — five operational toll road concessions in India.
• Leeward Renewable Energy — 19 operating windfarms across nine U.S. states with a capacity of 1.7-gigawatt
• LifeLabs — a community laboratory services provider, performing more than 100 million lab tests annually serving 19 million patients in Canada
• London City Airport — the closest airport to Central London
• MapleCo / SGN Smart — MapleCo funds the purchase and installation of gas and electricity smart meters under long-term rental contractors with U.K. energy supply companies
• MCV — a natural gas-fired combined heat and power plant in Michigan with a 1,600+ MW electricity capacity, and 1.5 million pounds per hour process steam production capacity
• NET4GAS — Exclusive gas transmission system operator in the Czech Republic, operating more than 3,800 km of pipelines and transporting 45 billion m³ of natural gas annually
• NextBridge Infrastructure — NextBridge is a partnership between OMERS Infrastructure, NextEra Energy and Enbridge established to develop a 450-km regulated transmission line in northern Ontario
• New Jersey Lottery — a 15-year contract to manage it
• Nova Scotia Schools — 16 public schools in Nova Scotia, which have been leased to the Province through 2020
• Oncor — a transmission and distribution company in Texas, providing electricity to more than 10 million customers via more than 119,000 miles (191,000 km) of transmission and distribution lines
• Port of Melbourne — a port that is visited by more than 3,000 ships per year
• Scotia Gas Networks — The U.K.'s second largest gas distribution network, supplying approximately 5.8 million residential, commercial and industrial consumers in Scotland and Southeast England
• Tank & Rast — a network of motorway service areas in Germany with 500 million visitors each year
• Teranet — The exclusive provider of essential, statutory electronic property search and registration services under long-term concessions in the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba
• Thames Water — a water utility in England and Wales, providing services to approximately 9 million water and 15 million wastewater customers across London and the Thames Valley
• Vento II — a 49% interest in a portfolio of four U.S. wind farms located in Minnesota, Illinois, Oregon and Texas, with a capacity of 599 megawatts

OMERS Private Equity

Among the private companies OPE has owned and subsequently sold is Marketwired.

OMERS and Apax Partners (a fund OMERS had invested in) previously invested in Cengage Learning, a large education resource company formerly known as Thomson Learning before OMERS and Apax Partners bought it on May 11, 2007. Some parts of Thomson Learning had been sold off to other groups before this sale. Among Cengage's major brands are Gale (formerly Thomson Gale) and Nelson Education (Nelson Canada, not Nelson USA Education).

See also: Cengage Learning § Brands

In 2019, OMERS ventures launched a $315M European Venture fund, a fully owned subsidiary of OMERS Ventures led by Managing Partner Harry Briggs.

See also

• Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec
• CPP Investment Board
• Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan
• Public Sector Pension Investment Board