Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, or CPP Investment Board for short, was established in 1997 by the Parliament in Canada. The plan is a professional investment manager that invests the assets of the Canada Pension Plan not currently in operation to pay pension, dsability, or survivor benefits. Gail Cook-Bennett would be the first chairman of the board of directors which consisted of 12 members and John MacNaughton would become the first CEO. By 2000, the value of CPP Investment Board’s fund was at an estimated value of $44.5 billion. That year the board also approved its first investments in private markets, committing $1.8 billion. Canadian parliament would soon after see the success that CPP Investment Board was having and transfer CPP cash and bonds to the board through legislation. David Denison would replace the first CEO in 2004 and the organization would have a fund valuation of over $80 billion. The company would continue to seek expansion, launching an active management strategy to diversify its line of investments and surpassing the $100 billion mark by 2006. At this point the firm would beginning looking to international markets, establishing its first international office in Hong Kong in 2008 and opening its second office in London in the same year. In 2010, the company would acquire the Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group, IMS Health alongside TPG Capital and Tomkins PLC, paying a total of over $12 billion. By the beginning of 2012, the company would have hit the $150 billion mark. In 2014 the company focused on international expansion again, opening investment offices in New York and Sao Paulo and surpassing the $200 billion mark that same year. CPP Investment Board currently holds $264.6 billion and have six locations located around the world. Most of its assets are focused in foreign developed market equities and bonds and money market securities, which total up to almost two thirds of its total asset allocations.