EPF Chief Executive Officer Shahril Ridza Ridzuan told Bloomberg it intended to invest more in private equity, property and infrastructure.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Bloomberg Markets Most Influential Summit in Hong Kong on Wednesday, Shahril said the fund wanted to boost investments in the three segments in the next three to four years to account for about 10 per cent of total assets, compared with more than 6 per cent currently.

“From our last six to seven years of experience looking at these assets, we’re now fairly convinced that they are viable asset classes, which will help us to meet our inflation-hedging targets,” Shahril was quoted as saying.

“Our long-term plan, our long-term target is to really provide a real rate of return. In order for you to do that, you need to have inflation-hedged assets.”

Bloomberg noted that investors the world over were struggling to generate returns.

The EPF, which has investment assets of RM689.69 billion, reported earlier this month that its second-quarter investment income dropped 26 per cent to RM8.44 billion from a year earlier. Fixed income accounted for almost 52 per cent of its investment assets as of June, while equities represented 41 per cent.

Shahril said the EPF was constantly on the lookout for property assets in the UK as other investors sought to exit after the country voted to withdraw from the European Union.

The fund, which had a UK property portfolio worth more than 2 billion pounds, was particularly keen to acquire real estate assets in the logistics and health-care sectors, he told Bloomberg.

“For a long-term investor, you sometimes have to be counter-cyclical, that’s what we tend to be,” Shahril said. “Typically, when markets suffer major corrections, we come in and buy heavily.”