CPPIB backs fledgling hedge funds as titans falter

Canada’s biggest pension plan aims to back as many as four fledgling hedge funds a year at a time when investors are balking at high fees and disappointing returns from the industry’s biggest managers.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has made initial investments of as much as $250 million each in five startups and young hedge funds under its Emerging Managers Program in the past two years, according to Poul Winslow, Toronto-based head of thematic investing and external portfolio management. While the pension fund has allocated to external hedge funds for almost a decade, it rarely invested in managers with a track record of less than a year before the start of the program in October 2015, he said in a telephone interview.

Read More: Financial Post