3 ms·

Is it just me or Canadian pension plans seem to be involved in a disproportionate share of dubious late stage tech investments? The Ontario Teachers' Pension Pl

Is it just me or Canadian pension plans seem to be involved in a disproportionate share of dubious late stage tech investments? The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan has an extensive Crunchbase page. Are there differences in regulations between the United States and Canada?

junofan 4y ago
Looks like they like to go direct to “save on management fees” and “pursue environmental goals,” so they probably get excluded from good deals.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
  They’ve been getting 9.6% annually since 1990, so maybe they are on to something with their environmental goals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Teachers'_Pension_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Teachers'_Pension_Plan
ypzhang2 4y ago
Look up the "Canadian Model". Canadian Pensions like OTPP are run more like private equity funds and they compensate their employees the same way in order to compete in terms of talent in order to generate deal-flow and deal identification. Traditionally, this has meant above market returns and is one of the reasons that Canadian pensions are generally well funded. This highlights the difference: https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2016/05/17/lessons-from-the-canadian-public-pension-fund-model/ https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2016/05/17/lessons-f...
puranjay 4y ago
They bought the top of a bunch of (unprofitable) Indian tech startups as well.
slyall 4y ago
OTPP bought the New Zealand Yellow pages for $US 1.6 billion in 2007[1]. Perfectly timed just as the Internet and Mobile phones took over everything (and just before the GFC hit). Just 3 years later it was a complete mess.[2] [1] https://www.forbes.com/2007/03/27/nz-yellow-pages-markets-equity-cx_vk_0326markets2.html https://www.forbes.com/2007/03/27/nz-yellow-pages-markets-eq... [2] https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64397212/yellow-directory-business-to-attempt-reboot https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64397212/yellow-direc...
- jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
  My god. Even in 2007 one glance at the stack of phone books in any apartment building lobby would have told you how little people were using them even then.

junofan 4y ago

Looks like they like to go direct to “save on management fees” and “pursue environmental goals,” so they probably get excluded from good deals.

IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
They’ve been getting 9.6% annually since 1990, so maybe they are on to something with their environmental goals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Teachers'_Pension_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Teachers'_Pension_Plan

ypzhang2 4y ago

Look up the "Canadian Model". Canadian Pensions like OTPP are run more like private equity funds and they compensate their employees the same way in order to compete in terms of talent in order to generate deal-flow and deal identification. Traditionally, this has meant above market returns and is one of the reasons that Canadian pensions are generally well funded. This highlights the difference: https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2016/05/17/lessons-from-the-canadian-public-pension-fund-model/ https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2016/05/17/lessons-f...

puranjay 4y ago

They bought the top of a bunch of (unprofitable) Indian tech startups as well.

slyall 4y ago

OTPP bought the New Zealand Yellow pages for $US 1.6 billion in 2007[1]. Perfectly timed just as the Internet and Mobile phones took over everything (and just before the GFC hit). Just 3 years later it was a complete mess.[2] [1] https://www.forbes.com/2007/03/27/nz-yellow-pages-markets-equity-cx_vk_0326markets2.html https://www.forbes.com/2007/03/27/nz-yellow-pages-markets-eq... [2] https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64397212/yellow-directory-business-to-attempt-reboot https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/64397212/yellow-direc...

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
My god. Even in 2007 one glance at the stack of phone books in any apartment building lobby would have told you how little people were using them even then.