(June 3, 2014) — The largest pension fund in Quebec is to add to its existing number of outpost offices in a bid to broaden its investment horizons, the CEO has announced.
Michael Sabia said yesterday that the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec would create offices in several cities across North America and Asia Pacific, according to Bloomberg.
“It is our responsibility to go out and seek returns where they are and serve as a bridge to the world for Quebec’s economy,” Sabia said at a conference in Montreal yesterday. “This will be one of the cornerstones of everything we do over the next five years.”
The C$200 billion fund is to open outposts in Washington DC and Mexico City, to add to its existing offices in Montreal and New York City. It intends to open an office in Singapore and eventually Mumbai and Sydney, the news agency reported. The Caisse intends to hire between 50 and 60 people across these new offices.
“Frankly, we have some catching up to do,” Sabia told reporters. “When I look at my friends at Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in Toronto, they have offices pretty widely distributed all over the world, with many people in them.”
A paper on the subject of investment outpost offices by Qais Al-Kharusi of the State General Reserve Fund of Oman, Adam Dixon of the University of Bristol, and Ashby Monk of Stanford University, said it helped the investor get “closer to the action.”
“In large part, this is an attempt to better align interests across the investment production chain and re-root finance and investment back in the real economy,” the paper said. “This increased involvement of these investors can be described as an attempt to reduce the agency problems that are pervasive in the functional and spatial structure of the investment management industry,” the authors said.
“You want to see what opportunities are really there, or if it is all just noise,” outgoing CIO and CEO of the Alberta Investment Corporation Leo de Bever told aiCIO in February. He had just announced the opening of the fund’s new London office.
“You want to deeply understand the market, understand exactly where you are investing, and you want to be approachable, to be part of the network,” said Fer Amkreutz, chief financial and risk officer in New York City for APG, the company that runs assets for Dutch pension giant ABP. APG also has an office in Hong Kong to supplement its main headquarters in Amsterdam.
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