TORONTO, May 26, 2020 /CNW/ - CI Investments Inc. ("CI or CI Investments") today announced the launch of three new mandates that allow investors to make a focused investment in real assets – infrastructure and real estate. The mandates are available in both mutual fund and exchange-traded fund series, with the ETF series having closed their initial offering and commencing trading today on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The pools and the TSX tickers for their ETF series are:

• CI Global Infrastructure Private Pool (CINF)
• CI Global REIT Private Pool (CGRE)
• CI Global Real Asset Private Pool (CGRA).

Each series of these new private pools is offered in Canadian dollars. Each private pool offers mutual fund series units available as Series A, Series F and Series I. Each private pool also offers ETF C$ Series. 

"There is a growing interest and need for real assets as investors seek new sources of reliable income, given today's extremely low interest rates," said Roy Ratnavel, CI Executive Vice-President and Head of Distribution. "In addition to higher yields, real assets also offer diversification benefits and the potential for more stable returns compared to the overall market."

The pools invest primarily in real estate investment trusts ("REITs"), equity securities of companies involved in the residential and commercial real estate sector and/or companies with either direct or indirect exposure to infrastructure. These investments are considered real assets because their value is related to underlying physical assets.

The portfolios are managed by Signature Global Asset Management, a division of CI Investments, which has a long history of successfully investing in real estate and infrastructure and manages over $7.5 billion in these asset classes across its portfolios (as of March 31, 2020).

Signature has earned a five-star Overall Morningstar Rating^TM for Signature Global Infrastructure Fund (Series F) and a four-star rating for Signature Global REIT Fund (Series F) and Signature Global REIT Class (Series F). The Signature team also manages CI First Asset Canadian REIT ETF (TSX: RIT).

"Signature has developed deep expertise in the infrastructure and real estate sectors on a global basis and achieved excellent results," Mr. Ratnavel said.

"These new mandates enhance our highly competitive lineup of private pools and ETFs and are part of our ongoing initiative to modernize our asset management business. By offering our investment capabilities in a variety of structures, our clients can choose the structure most suitable for them."

The expansion of CI's lineup of private pools and ETFs supports CI Financial's overall strategic priority of modernizing its asset management business. As part of this, CI Investments will be rebranded CI Global Asset Management later this year, in recognition of the firm's extensive global investment capabilities.

CI Private Pools™ were introduced in October 2018 and now include 21 focused mandates to meet the needs of high net worth investors. The flat-fee pools span asset classes, geographic regions and investment styles, and are designed as convenient portfolio "building blocks."

For more information, please visit the CI Private Pools website.

Information about CI's extensive ETF lineup is available at firstasset.com.

About CI Investments
CI Investments is one of Canada's largest investment management companies. It offers a wide range of investment products and services and is on the Web at www.ci.com. CI is a subsidiary of CI Financial Corp. (TSX: CIX), an independent company offering global asset management and wealth management advisory services with $166.3 billion in fee-earning assets as of April 30, 2020.

Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with an investment in mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs). Please read the prospectus before investing. Important information about mutual funds and ETFs is contained in their respective prospectus. Mutual funds and ETFs are not guaranteed; their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. The indicated rates of return are the historical annual compound total returns including changes in unit value and reinvestment of all distributions and do not take into account sales, redemption, distribution or operational charges or income taxes payable by any securityholder that would have reduced returns. Performance is calculated net of all fees. Commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with an investment in ETFs. You will usually pay brokerage fees to your dealer if you purchase or sell units of an ETF on the TSX. If the units are purchased or sold on the TSX, investors may pay more than the current net asset value when buying units of the ETF and may receive less than the current net asset value when selling them.

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Morningstar Rating is for the F share class only; other classes may have different performance characteristics.

Morningstar Ratings reflect performance as of April 30, 2020 and are subject to change monthly. The ratings are calculated from a fund's 3, 5, and 10-year returns measured against 91-day Treasury bill and peer group returns. The top 10% of the funds in a category get five stars. The Overall Rating is a weighted combination of the 3, 5 and 10-year ratings. For greater detail see www.morningstar.ca.

The CIFSC category, Morningstar Star Ratings, and number of peer funds for each fund are as follows:

Performance:

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SOURCE CI Investments Inc.

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