Funds veteran Morais leaves CPPIB

Jennifer Morais has left CPPIB's funds, secondaries and co-investments team, which is working to deploy $10bn in secondaries deals over five years.

Jennifer Morais, a senior principal in the private fund group at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, left the organisation about two weeks ago after about eight years on the job.

A spokesperson confirmed Morais’ move, but declined to comment further. It was unclear at press time whether Morais had taken a job elsewhere.

Morais joined CPPIB in 2005 in the funds, secondaries and co-investment group after working in private equity at the Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System. She has been responsible for more than $5 billion of capital exposure, according to a biography of her in trade group Institutional Limited Partners Association documents.

CPPIB’s Private Investments group is led by André Bourbonnais, senior vice president, and includes executives Jim Fasano, vice president and head of funds, secondaries and co-investments, and Yann Robard, head of secondaries and co-investments. Other executives include Julie Gray, senior principal, and Jennifer Kerr, vice president and head of funds.

The institution, which had total assets of C$188.9 billion (€137 billion; $182.6 billion) at the end of June, has been making major moves around private equity secondaries. Since 2007, CPPIB has deployed $4.5 billion in more than 24 secondaries deals. Of that amount, 70 percent has been used for the acquisition of limited partner interests, with the remaining 30 percent in direct secondaries, including spin-outs of captive teams or providing liquidity to tail-end portfolios. The system wants to deploy $10 billion over the next five years to secondaries.

CPPIB has been a big participant in the wave of general partner restructurings that came to market in the last few years. In 2012, the institution became the anchor backer on the restructuring of Behrman Capital’s $1.2 billion third fund.

Earlier this year, CPPIB also backed the spin-out of the food and consumer products team from HM Capital, contributing a more than $100 million commitment to the newly established firm, called Kainos Capital. CPPIB also bought stakes in three portfolio companies from HM Capital’s 2006 Sector Performance Fund, companies that are being managed by the Kainos team.