CoreWeave bet powers 7.4% gain at $66B Ontario pension fund

Investment Management Corp. of Ontario earned 7.4% last year thanks to strong equity gains and a roughly C$1 billion ($723 million) return from trimming its position in artificial intelligence cloud provider CoreWeave Inc.

The pension manager fell short of its consolidated benchmark, which gained 8.8%, its annual report stated. Stock holdings earned 19.1% in 2025, while private equity rose 6.5%, according to a statement Thursday. Its real estate portfolio lost 0.5%.

CoreWeave added 77 basis points to IMCO’s total net return, contributing more than any other single holding, Chief Investment Officer Rossitsa Stoyanova said.

IMCO invested $150 million in CoreWeave in 2023. The company’s valuation soared as big technology companies demanded its cloud services to power new AI models, and it went public in March 2025.

“The investment thesis was realized a lot faster than what we expected,” Stoyanova said, noting that IMCO doesn’t usually take big, concentrated positions. “It was a good surprise, but at the same time, we had to trim the position significantly.”

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IMCO declined to disclose the size of its current stake in CoreWeave, which Stoyanova referred to as “right sized.” It also has AI-related bets in other data center providers and fiber networks.

“Regardless of who will be the AI winner, companies that provide services will succeed,” she said.

Last year, the money manager’s assets climbed to C$90.7 billion ($66 billion) at year-end. The US accounted for 53% of that total, Canada 29% and Europe 12%, largely in line with its 2024 allocation.

IMCO plans to maintain that level of exposure to Canada while boosting its overall assets, the firm said in the statement.

In addition to trimming its CoreWeave stake, IMCO also decreased its US dollar exposure, according to Stoyanova. The US dollar weakened by close to 5% against the loonie last year, reducing total returns by about 1.5%.

In a January report, the Toronto-based pension cited the Swiss franc, Japanese yen and gold as potential alternatives to the US dollar as President Donald Trump’s policies pressure the greenback. Canada’s response to US trade pressures — particularly through increased investment in large-scale infrastructure — may broaden domestic investment opportunities, IMCO said at the time.

IMCO was founded in 2016 to consolidate the management of a number of retirement funds for government workers in Canada’s most populous province. Bloomberg