CPPIB loses Europe secondaries lead Morandi

Nik Morandi, a senior principal, has helped lead the Canadian pension giant's secondaries business since 2016.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the biggest investor in private equity according to the GI 100, has lost a senior member of its European secondaries team, Secondaries Investor has learned.

Nik_Morandi
Morandi: Departs after four years

Nik Morandi, a senior principal, is leaving the C$434.4 billion ($329.3 billion; €278 billion) pension giant, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for CPPIB declined to comment. Morandi could not be reached for comment.

Morandi joined the pension in 2016 from Pantheon where he was a partner and has been leading its European secondaries business with senior principal Louis Choy based in London.

It is unclear where Morandi is headed next.

The Toronto-headquartered pension, the most well-known non-traditional investor in the secondaries market in recent years, became a net seller during the last fiscal year after two years of heavy secondaries investment, its latest annual report shows. It made C$700 million of secondaries investments across six deals in the 12 months to 31 March.

This compares with C$5.5 billion during the last fiscal year, which was a 31 percent jump on the C$4.2 billion it invested the year before.

The pension giant cited “two very active deployment years and a cautious market outlook” as the reasons for moderating its investment pace.

CPPIB’s former head of secondaries Michael Woolhouse left the pension in July to set up a secondaries investment business at private equity giant TPG in August.

CPPIB topped sister publication Private Equity International‘s GI 100 ranking of the biggest investors in the private equity, with $80.76 billion, or 24.9 percent of its total portfolio exposed to the asset class.

– Read our 2019 interview with CPPIB’s secondaries team here.