Global Strategic Investment Alliance

GSIA was established in 2012 by OMERS, one of Canada's largest pension plans, to serve as a direct co-investment platform for infrastructure deals. OMERS Infrastructure acts as the investment manager, sourcing, evaluating, and managing assets on behalf of the alliance. OMERS itself is the anchor investor, typically committing alongside a small group of external institutional partners.

The full list of partners has not been uniformly disclosed by GSIA, but public records indicate that several large Japanese and Korean institutional investors were part of the initial capital base. These include the Pension Fund Association of Japan and Japan's Development Bank, among others, reflecting the vehicle's original design to channel Asian institutional capital into Western infrastructure.

GSIA focuses on large-scale, operating infrastructure across transportation, energy, and regulated utilities. Past transactions have included stakes in airports, toll roads, and midstream energy assets. The strategy emphasizes core, OECD-based assets with long-dated, contracted, or regulated cash flows.

GSIA's pace of new investment activity has moderated significantly since the late 2010s. While the platform has not been formally wound down, OMERS has shifted its primary infrastructure fundraising toward its flagship closed-end fund series, which closed its fifth vintage at $13.3 billion in 2022. The GSIA structure remains in place for existing portfolio holdings.

One of GSIA's marquee investments was the Chicago Skyway, a 7.8-mile toll road, which the alliance acquired alongside OMERS and other Canadian pension investors in 2015 for $2.8 billion. The asset was sold to Atlas Arteria in 2022, generating a significant realized return for the partners.