CPPIB makes raft of senior appointments

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which manages C$287.3 billion ($220 billion; €195 billion) in assets, has made a raft of senior appointments.

The Toronto-based pension fund has appointed Ryan Selwood as head of direct private equity, according to a statement. Selwood will be responsible for overseeing co-sponsorships and other direct private equity transactions. He was recently managing director in the direct private equity group and lead for CPPIB’s financial institutions investing initiative, having joined in 2006 from Merrill Lynch.

CPPIB’s direct private equity programme focuses on North America and Europe, and seeks a range of ownership structures from minority to full control, co-investing alongside its general partners or investing in opportunities that don’t fall under the traditional PE structure, according to its 2016 annual report.

CPPIB has appointed Shane Feeney, former head of direct private equity, as senior managing director and global head of private investments. Feeney will be responsible for all CPPIB’s private investment activities, and will report directly to president and chief executive officer Mark Machin.

Feeney replaces Mark Jenkins, who will leave CPPIB on 16 September to take become managing director and head of global credit at The Carlyle Group, a newly-created position. Jenkins will become a member of each credit fund’s investment committee and join Carlyle’s management committee, according to a statement from the buyout house.

CPPIB has also established a new real assets investments department, which will be led by Graeme Eadie. The department brings together the real estate investment division with the CPPIB’s existing infrastructure and agriculture groups.

CPPIB’s private equity portfolio posted a year-over-year increase of 25 percent for the 2017 fiscal year’s first quarter, which ended 30 June, as reported by Private Equity International.

The fund’s private equity exposure reached C$59.6 billion, an increase of one-quarter from the C$47.6 billion value reported at the end of the same quarter last year. The 2017 first-quarter figure is also 2.4 percent higher than the C$58.2 billion listed for the three months ending 31 March.

Private equity now represents 20.8 percent of the total assets reported for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Fund, a fund within the larger CPPIB, which marked a new peak. CPPIB is the umbrella organisation that makes investments through the CPP Fund.

During the quarter CPPIB made a number of private investments, including a $2.5 billion agreement to purchase 40 percent of Glencore Agricultural Products in April and a contribution of an undisclosed amount to Teine Energy’s C$975 million acquisition of Penn West Petroleum’s assets in Saskatchewan in June.

It also entered co-investment deals, including one in which CPPIB and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, another Canadian pension fund, formed a partnership in Mexico with infrastructure developer Impulsora del Desarrollo y el Empleo en América Latina. CPPIB also made another co-investment with Cinven to acquire Spain-based Hotelbed Group from Tui Group for an enterprise value of €1.17 billion.