Website: oxfordproperties.com
Head office address (Canada): EY Tower, 100 Adelaide Street West, Suite 2100, Toronto, Ontario M5H 0E2
Year established: 1960
Ownership structure: wholly owned real estate subsidiary of OMERS (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System), a Canadian defined benefit pension plan; privately held
Target market/client profile: institutional co-investors, sovereign wealth funds, and private equity partners globally; commercial, retail, industrial, residential, and hotel tenants across Canada and international markets
Number of professional staff: more than 1,300 globally
Office locations (Canadian cities): Toronto (global headquarters)
Oxford Properties Group is a Toronto-based real estate investor, developer, and manager. It serves as the real estate subsidiary of OMERS, a defined benefit pension plan for 665,000 Ontario public sector workers.
Oxford was founded by G. Donald Love in Edmonton in 1960 as Oxford Leaseholds. He started the company alongside John and George Poole, the founders of PCL Construction. Together, the three partners built the business from its Edmonton base in the years that followed.
The company grew its real estate portfolio through the 1960s and 1970s before undergoing a major ownership shift. It went private in 1980 through a management-led leveraged buyout. Management took direct ownership of the firm and continued to grow the portfolio through the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
Oxford Properties returned to public markets in 1995. OMERS acquired the company in 2001, which brought Oxford under the pension plan’s direct ownership. From there, the firm grew from a Canadian real estate developer into a global platform spanning four continents.
By December 31, 2025, Oxford and its platform companies managed $86.2 billion in assets across more than 650 properties totalling 146.7 million square feet. That portfolio spans Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
The company deepened its Canadian office holdings in a notable way in 2025. That June, Oxford Properties acquired CPP Investments’ 50 percent stake in seven downtown office properties across Calgary and Vancouver for $730 million. The deal gave Oxford full ownership of a portfolio valued at around $1.5 billion.
The deal added four million square feet to Oxford Properties’ direct holdings. The Calgary properties are Eau Claire Tower, Centennial Place, and 400 Third Avenue. The Vancouver assets include the Stack, Guinness Tower, the Marine Building, and MNP Tower.
Oxford manages real estate across the following asset classes in Canada and abroad:
Oxford Properties manages each asset from acquisition through to daily operations. That portfolio’s performance flows directly to retirement savings for 665,000 OMERS members.
Eric Plesman serves as president and CEO of Oxford Properties Group and as global head of real estate for OMERS. He started his career at Morgan Stanley, where he spent more than a decade in progressively senior roles. Plesman joined the firm in 2011 and graduated from the Ivey Business School at Western University.
Plesman leads Oxford’s global executive committee:
Oxford Properties operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of OMERS, which manages retirement security for Ontario public sector workers. That membership spans municipalities, school boards, transit systems, electrical utilities, emergency services, and children’s aid societies across the province.
Oxford Properties serves two distinct groups:
OMERS is the primary source of capital, with co-investors drawn from sovereign wealth funds and private equity firms that invest alongside Oxford as co-principals.
Toronto serves as Oxford’s global headquarters and primary Canadian operating base. The firm holds major office portfolios in Calgary and Vancouver, where it owns seven buildings outright following the 2025 transaction. It also operates hotel properties across the country through partnerships with hotel operators.
Oxford Properties works with a group of institutional co-investors across strategies, markets, and asset classes. The firm says it invests as a principal in the same deals as its partners, keeping interests aligned across the portfolio. It also holds ownership stakes in platform companies across industrial, workplace, and living sectors, providing those businesses with capital and strategic direction.
Oxford Properties and OMERS have earned workplace recognition in Canada. The firm also built a formal sustainability program with independent external review.
OMERS and Oxford ranked 17th on the Great Place to Work Institute’s 50 Best Workplaces in Canada in 2024. Ninety percent of Oxford and OMERS employees rated their workplace as excellent, against a 60 percent average at typical Canadian organizations.
Oxford Properties established its Green Financing Framework in 2022 to guide its shift toward lower-carbon real estate investment. It built the framework around recognized international green bond and loan standards. Sustainalytics, an ESG research firm, independently confirmed the framework met those criteria.
The company reported a 21 percent reduction in carbon emissions intensity between 2019 and 2025. It says this shows changes in how it manages and operates properties across its global portfolio.
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