October 2017

Caisse aims to cut portfolio’s carbon footprint 25% by 2025

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is setting bold targets to shelter its portfolio against the impact of climate change. The country's second-largest pension fund is seeking more profitable investment opportunities and means to avoid assets it forecasts will be left behind in a global marketplace being reshaped by an increasingly low-carbon world economy. The move comes as institutional investors around the world are reassessing climate risks and other so-called environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors in...

Canada. It’s time to treat aging as an asset, not a burden

By now, you may be aware that Canada’s seniors recently crossed a significant threshold. Statistics Canada announced for the first time ever that people over 65 now officially outnumber children under 15. The story is similar all over the world. Historians will say one day that this global shift in demographics was one of the most important events of the 21st century. Indeed, it’s certainly a triumph of public health and modern medicine. For many, though, this shift is seen...

Canadian Pension Plan to invest up to US$500 million on data centres

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is investing up to US$350 million in data centres with Singapore’s Alpha Data Centre Fund (ADCF), with the option to invest another $150 million. CPPIB, the investment manager of Canada’s biggest pension plan, is teaming up with Singapore-based Alpha Investment Partners and data centre operator Keppel Data Centre Holdings (Keppel Data Centre) – both part of the city state’s Keppel Group – in the deal. The ADCF was launched in July 2016 by Alpha...

Canadian Pension Fund To Invest In Singapore Keppel’s Asset Management Business

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has decided to make an initial investment of up to $350 million, with an option to invest another $150 million, in Alpha Data Centre Fund, the asset management business of Singapore's Keppel Corporation. CPPIB's latest commitment and option will bring the ADCF's combined and co-investment interest up to $1 billion, double its initial target size of $500 million, Keppel said in an exchange filing today. "When fully leveraged and invested, the fund will potentially have...

Canada. CDPQ and CKD IM acquire Mexican wind and solar assets of Enel Green Power, for a total capacity of 1,712 MW

La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), a long-term institutional investor, and CKD Infraestructura México (CKD IM), a consortium of Mexican institutional investors, announced today the acquisition of 80% of a portfolio of eight wind and solar assets owned by Enel Green Power(Enel), a global leader in renewable energy. Following this transaction, Enel will remain the operator and retain 20% of the portfolio. This is a major investment for CDPQ and CKD IM, a group consisting of Mexican pension fund managers...

Canada’s Pension Funds Are Piling on Leverage, Moody’s Warns

Canada’s public pension funds, among the biggest in the world, are piling on risk with leveraged bets in a chase for higher returns, Moody’s Investors Service warns. The nation’s six biggest pension funds have increased their average leverage to 24 percent, from 19 percent in 2009, in an effort to offset the impact of declining pension member contributions and low interest rates on their cash flow and investment returns, Moody’s said in an Oct. 3 report written by analyst Jason...

September 2017

CPPIB allocates $1 billion for Indian public market investments

Not all foreign funds are balking at Indian equities -spooked by rich valuations, slow corporate earnings or at the growing prospects of interest rate hikes in the US. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), the most active Canadian investor in India, has just reaffirmed its commitment, by allocating a dedicated $1-billion corpus, exclusively for public market investments, said multiple sources aware. As one of the 10 largest retirement funds in the world, the initial thesis of CPPIB has been to...

Canada. Québec’s largest pension fund turns to carbon budgets to address climate risks

Investment managers at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec have a new tool to help them account for the increased financial risks posed by climate change: Carbon budgets. These “budgets” allow managers to allocate a specific amount of carbon-dioxide emissions that might result from an investment decision, effectively setting limits on the carbon footprint of a manager’s portfolio. Within the carbon budget, “you have to make choices as to where you invest and how you invest because what we...

August 2017

Canada. CPPIB to end Kotak JV plan for stressed assets

Canada's largest pension fund CPPIB will call off its proposed joint venture with Kotak Mahindra Group to invest in stressed assets in India. The $525-million fund that was announced in March 2016 will be wound up as it failed to find investments in stressed assets, said two people with direct knowledge of the development. Kotak Group will now go alone with commitments from some sovereign funds such as Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and Qatar Investment Authority on a deal...

Canada Pension Plan reform to boost assets above $15 trillion by 2090

The upcoming enrichment of the Canada Pension Plan will help fuel a 48-fold boost to the public fund’s assets over the long haul – to more than $15.8 trillion by 2090, according to federal calculations. In comparison, the public plan’s investment manager reported $326.5 billion in net assets at the end of the first quarter of 2017-18. Long-term projections on the evolution of the CPP’s post-reform assets were included in an internal briefing note prepared for federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau...