LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT & CEO

In my last message to you, I spoke about resilience, agility and the ways OMERS is positioning our Strategy to adapt, innovate and strengthen the Plan. In doing so, we are taking full advantage of key growth opportunities in service of all of you.

Since the beginning of this year, we have made solid progress in many areas, and I would like to highlight some important activity regarding our new economy and real estate holdings.

Across the enterprise, particularly in our Ventures and Growth Equity portfolio, OMERS partners with strong companies that are leveraging technology in innovative and disruptive ways. From early stage to more mature companies expanding their operations, our strategy as a direct investor is to work with world-class businesses as they move on to their next stages of growth.

We saw a good example of this in one of the year’s largest Canadian tech buyouts with Wattpad, a digital storytelling platform. OMERS Ventures invested in Wattpad back in 2012, and it has been gratifying to see this inspiring Canadian company grow into a global powerhouse resulting in a $600 million deal. Our Growth Equity team, which we established two years ago to finance mid-stage disruptors, has also been incredibly busy this year. Within two months, the team completed five transactions in companies that are using technology to reimagine core industries such as healthcare, talent recruitment and legal, among others.

Also adding significant value for our members, the infrastructure team closed on the sale of our interest in Caruna, a Finnish electricity utility that we first invested in back in 2013. And OMERS Private Equity announced an agreement to sell our interest in ERM, a global environmental consultancy in which we have held a stake since 2015. In both cases, these sales will return healthy gains back to OMERS.

We have also been thinking a great deal about the future of the real estate sector. Our real estate arm, Oxford Properties, invests in, develops and manages some of the world’s most transformative places, and we continue to believe in the long-term value of our portfolio. Without a doubt, in many ways, the real estate sector has been significantly impacted by the pandemic, particularly retail spaces, including shopping malls. We are continuing to diversify further, including seven new life sciences investments so far this year. Together with related development opportunities, these investments will account for over $1.3 billion of deployed capital.

We are looking forward to sharing more of these developments throughout the year. It is very important to us that you have accurate and factual information about your Plan that gives you a concrete depiction of where we are at any given time.

To that end, we are pleased to let you know that we are publishing our mid-year results in late summer to provide you with an update on our progress. This additional reporting will increase our options for accessing liquidity and is aligned to the value we place on transparency and trust with all of our members.

OMERS and Oxford both have an outstanding domestic and global reputation. As part of serving you, we work every day to protect it, build upon it and enhance it. We care deeply about the Plan and it is our honour to continue to serve you with gratitude for your ongoing commitment to keeping our communities healthy and safe.

Enjoy your summer.