Latest news with #MapleEight
Calgary Herald
8 hours ago
- Business
- Calgary Herald
AIMCo seeks new CIO amid push to expand Calgary office
Article content Alberta Investment Management Corp. is hunting for a new chief investment officer as it carries out an overhaul that began last year when the provincial government fired the board and its top executive. Article content The new CIO would be based in Calgary, the largest city in Alberta and the home of Canada's major oil and gas companies. Edmonton-based Aimco is considering both internal and external candidates, according to people familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. Article content Article content Article content Four people held the CIO title at Aimco in less than four years. The most recent, Marlene Puffer, departed in September. Article content Article content Aimco, which manages about $180 billion of pension capital and other money for the Canadian province, wants to increase its staff in Calgary to boost the city's financial sector. Newly appointed Chief Legal Officer John Walsh works out of the Calgary office, which has about 70 of Aimco's 680 employees. Article content 'The size of the team in Calgary has grown and we're looking for space to accommodate them,' Aimco spokesperson Carolyn Quick said. The firm is also changing its remote-work policy, requiring employees to work from the office three times a week starting in January, the people said. Article content Aimco's restructuring was set in motion on Nov. 7, when Alberta's finance minister sacked the board, Chief Executive Officer Evan Siddall and three other executives, saying they had allowed expenses to soar to unacceptable levels. Ray Gilmour was named interim CEO and Stephen Harper, the former Canadian prime minister, was installed as chair. Article content Article content Since then, the money manager's global expansion, championed by Siddall, has reversed. It shuttered its offices in New York and Singapore and parted ways with David Scudellari, its global head of private assets, and Kevin Bong, the executive who ran the Singapore office. Article content Last month, Aimco laid off around a dozen employees and decided to freeze around 25 vacant roles, according to one of the people. Earlier this year, Aimco eliminated 19 jobs, including the role responsible for the diversity, equity and inclusion program. Article content Aimco produced a 12.6% return last year in its balanced fund, missing its benchmark of 13.4%. Its total fund return was 12.3%. But the fund's results exceeded those of some peers in the so-called Maple Eight, such as Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, which last year earned 8.3% and 9.4%, respectively.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Global Risk Spurs Ontario Pension Fund to Revamp PE Strategy
(Bloomberg) -- Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan is re-examining its private equity unit, aiming to lean more on partnerships rather than owning entire firms as it seeks to mitigate risk. New York Subway Ditches MetroCard After 32 Years for Tap-And-Go LA Faces $1 Billion Budget Hole, Warns of Thousands of Layoffs Despite Cost-Cutting Moves, Trump Plans to Remake DC in His Style Chicago Transit Faces 'Doomsday Scenario,' Regional Agency Says Amtrak CEO Departs Amid Threats of a Transit Funding Pullback For decades, the pension fund in Canada's most populous province has bought companies outright within its private equity business, and also backed firms alongside partners and external managers. Now Ontario Teachers' — which oversees C$266.3 billion ($185.2 billion) — will focus that business 'more on a partner basis,' Chief Executive Officer Jo Taylor said in an interview. With all of the uncertainty in the world, 'you dial back the risk by doing it with a partner rather than doing it on your own,' he said. Canada's biggest pensions, known as the Maple Eight, oversee roughly C$2.3 trillion ($1.6 trillion) and have a distinctive strategy that focuses on long-term bets — often wholly owning firms they're backing. But a prolonged deal drought amid elevated interest rates and President Donald Trump's trade war are prompting pensions to rethink their models. Ontario Teachers' has another reason for shifting its approach to its C$60.4 billion private equity portfolio: the complexities that come with operating its companies. 'Assets are taking more time, resources and effort to get to their full potential,' Taylor said. 'Having partners who can help with that journey and actually that work is often a way of sharing the load.' Taylor didn't rule out buying controlling stakes on its own. While Ontario Teachers' is scaling back on buying new firms, it's expanding existing portfolio firms through acquisitions. Insurance broker BroadStreet Partners, for example, has been growing by gobbling up other firms. In the 1990s, Ontario Teachers' pioneered the so-called Canadian Model of managing assets in-house, championing independent governance and employing sophisticated staff who travel around the world in search of lucrative investments. Other major Canadian pensions followed suit and became known as the Maple Eight — and now Ontario Teachers' peers are also looking to lean more on external managers for private equity deals. Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec said last month that it will scale back its direct investing and team up with third-party managers. And Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System halted direct private equity investments in Europe last year, shifting its exposure in the region by investing alongside partners and third-party managers. 'Business as Usual' Ontario Teachers' is also reshuffling its management team within its private capital unit. The pension's new interim executive managing director for equities, Dale Burgess, now oversees private equity — along with infrastructure and natural resources. 'He's going to do that for a period of time, and what we're trying to do is figure out what do we need from a leadership point of view around private equity,' Taylor said. The pension fund doesn't plan to replace former senior managing director Jean-Charles Douin, who left last year and focused on direct investing within private capital out of the London office. Iñaki Echave, previously co-head with Douin for the Europe, Middle East and Africa private capital team, is Teachers' private capital leader in that region, according to Taylor. It's still 'business as usual,' said Taylor, who said the fund is also altering its approach to public equities by prioritizing passive investing over stock picking. 'I think it's going to have more of a passive feel to it,' he said. Putting pensioners' money in indexes and investing passively 'probably overall is a better bet' than trying to outperform the market, which requires more technology and data, Taylor said. Ontario Teachers' had C$37.4 billion of public equities as of Dec. 31, according to its annual report. (Updates to add dollar figure of public equity exposure in the last paragraph. An earlier version corrected the penultimate paragraph to remove a statement that said the fund has abandoned its active stock-picking strategy.) A New 'China Shock' Is Destroying Jobs Around the World Tesla's Gamble on MAGA Customers Won't Work How TD Became America's Most Convenient Bank for Money Launderers One Man's Crypto Windfall Is Funding a $1 Billion Space Station Dream The Real Reason Trump Is Pushing 'Buy American' ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Sign in to access your portfolio
Bloomberg
11-03-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
‘Buy Canada' Hits $1.6 Trillion Money Pot as Trump Stokes Anger
US President Donald Trump's back-and-forth tariff threats are galvanizing an 'invest in Canada' movement that's prodding pensions to keep more of their cash at home. The country's biggest pensions, known as the Maple Eight, oversee roughly C$2.3 trillion ($1.6 trillion), about a quarter of which is invested in Canada, according to Bloomberg calculations. Many Canadian politicians and business people aim to make that portion grow much larger — putting further pressure on the country's pension model.
