The chief executive officer of Canada’s largest pension fund said some buying opportunities seen during the selloff at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have now faded.

“There were some remarkable opportunities,” said Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) CEO Mark Machin in an interview with BNN Bloomberg’s Amanda Lang on Tuesday. “I think a lot of things have come back right now, so they’re not massive, burning opportunities given how much the force of government and central bank support has really put huge amounts of liquidity back into markets.”

“Markets are functioning quite well in almost all respects,” he added.

Machin said when it comes to future opportunities, he’s watching how trends are emerging in sectors such as real estate and hospitality.  

In terms of where CPPIB is looking geographically, Machin said there’s some countries that have recovered well, but it’s still too early to tell where the best opportunities for investment lie.

“Some economies and some markets have seemed to manage this well at the moment,” he said, pointing to Korea, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. “These economies have recovered to a great extent, although they’ve all got their own idiosyncratic issues. I say from a timing point of view, they’ve recovered, but it ain’t over yet.”

Machin’s comments come as CPPIB reported a 3.1-per-cent return for its fiscal 2020, its worst annual performance since 2009.