Canada’s AGF Management, which manages about $45 billion, has opened a Sydney office that will seek to attract Australian superannuation and individual investors into its funds.

As part of its efforts to attract money, Toronto-based AGF will host 12 Australian superannuation funds in May in New York. There it will present details of its investment strategy and performance of its funds.

“There is a high level of interest in our products,” says Chris Boyle, a senior vice president at AGF. “It’s too early to say if there are firm commitments.”

Foreign pension funds such as AGF and Memphis-based Southeastern Asset Management have established offices in Australia in order to try and secure money from the world’s fifth-largest pension fund market, estimated at about $1.3 trillion.

Lilly Price will work as a business development manager for AGF in Sydney.

The company’s US large-cap growth equity fund had a minus-3.6-per-cent gross return last year while in 2010 it had a 24-per-cent return and in 2009 a 40-per-cent return.

The firm’s global natural resources equity fund had a minus-19-per-cent gross return last year. In 2010 it had a 37 per cent return and a 94 per cent return in 2009.