By Muskan Arora
The $472.8bn Canada Pension Plan Investment
Board disclosed commitments of $2.9bn made during the first quarter of the
fiscal year.
CPPIB has noted a net return of 1% for the
quarter, and a 10-year annualized net return of 9.1% through that date.
The quarter’s returns were essentially
driven by investments in public equity, credit and U.S.-dollar denominated
assets.
“These gains were partially offset by
investments in government bonds, which were negatively impacted as markets
around the world reduced their expectations of rate cuts by central banks due
to persisting inflation,” stated the August 14 press release.
Private Equity Commitments
Within the private equity portfolio, the
system committed $600m to Thoma Bravo Fund XVI, which targets
control-oriented software buyouts in application, infrastructure and
cybersecurity sectors within North America and Europe.
The system committed $450m to Ontic,
a U.K. based provider of specialized parts and repair services for established
aerospace technologies. Another commitment of $200m to Clearlake Capital
Partners VIII, a special situations fund focused on deploying capital
across private equity, credit and other related strategies in North America.
Further, the system committed $100m to Kedaara
Capital IV, which focuses on midmarket buyout and minority growth
investments in India.
CPPIB also committed $100m to Brookfield
Capital Partners IV, that makes control investments in industrial, business
services and infrastructure services companies globally.
Lastly, the pension plan also committed
$84m (€77m) to Barley (No 1), a single asset continuation vehicle for a
leading European specialty ingredients distributor. Additional commitment of
$50m to Scale AI, a U.S. based platform that combines advanced machine
learning algorithms with human intelligence to grow the production of
high-quality training data for artificial intelligence model.
Other Commitments including Real Assets
CPPIB committed €500m to Blackstone Real
Estate Partners Europe VII, which invests in under-managed well-located
real estate assets across Europe.
Following the first quarter, the pension
fund also committed $96m (£75m) to a mezzanine loan facility supporting ThinCats,
an alternative lender to mid-sized businesses in the U.K.
The system also allocated $75m to Radical
Growth I, an AI-focused venture and growth manager located in Toronto, San
Francisco and London.
Lastly, the pension plan allocated €550m to
acquire an approximate 20% stake in team.blue, a leading webhosting
services provider and digital enabler for small and medium sized business and
entrepreneurs across Europe.
