James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reports Dutch tax court rules Ontario pension plan wrongly claimed $346-million in tax refunds:

A Dutch tax court ruled this week that Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan wrongly claimed nearly €214-million ($346-million) of dividend tax refunds through a trading strategy designed to take advantage of the pension fund’s favourable tax status in the Netherlands.

The court upheld the opinion of a tax inspector who found that in 445 transactions between 2013 and 2018, HOOPP was not the true beneficial owner of the Dutch shares that paid the dividends and so could not reclaim tax withheld against them, in a ruling published on Wednesday.

The decision is a setback for HOOPP in a long-running tax dispute, launched in 2019, which also led a Dutch prosecutor to initiate a separate criminal investigation in October. The tax court’s decision would require HOOPP to repay the refunded tax as well as about €40-million ($65-million) in interest charges.

“HOOPP is disappointed by this tax court ruling and will appeal the decision,” spokesperson Scott White said in an e-mailed statement. “This initial ruling on events that occurred between 2013 and 2018 will have no impact on HOOPP’s ability to pay pensions to our members today or in the future.”

HOOPP declined to make further comment on the case because it is still before the courts.

The key issue in the tax dispute – and the more recent criminal inquiry – is whether HOOPP met the test to be considered the beneficial owners of shares traded on the Dutch stock exchange. Dutch authorities have alleged the pension fund used sophisticated contracts with counterparties to exploit its tax status for financial gain.

Dutch tax authorities first looked into HOOPP’s trades in response to a news story about “dividend stripping,” which involves buying shares for a short period before a dividend is declared and then selling them back to the original owner, according to court filings.

In 2013, HOOPP’s investment risk committee approved a derivative strategy that sought to capitalize on the fact that foreign pension funds in countries including Canada are entitled to have a 15-per-cent tax on dividend distributions refunded, which other institutions would have to pay, according to documents reviewed by the court.

HOOPP found that it could buy “foreign stocks prior to the payment of dividends,” then sell them to another entity – a bank – shortly after it received the dividend, according to the risk committee’s documents. In the meantime, it would hedge the risk of the stock price changing using an equity swap or call option. HOOPP would then keep “a small percentage of the dividend – a percentage less than the withholding tax, and the remaining dividend amount is paid to the other entity."

HOOPP purchased and sold the shares “over the counter” through brokers, and argued there was no contractual link between its share purchases and the price return swaps it entered into with banks, so the transactions were not “circular,” according to court filings.

But the tax authorities found that HOOPP correspondence showed the pension fund was communicating with various banks, agreeing on “price return swaps” at the time it bought the shares. Those contracts were settled after the record date when HOOPP became eligible to receive the tax-free dividends.

“With this strategy, the interested party wanted to make use of its dividend withholding tax refund position,” a translation of the court ruling said, in reference to HOOPP.

HOOPP’s counterparty bank, “which has retained its interest in the shares by means of the price return swap, is on balance compensated an amount corresponding to the amount of the net dividend to be distributed, plus part of the dividend tax withheld from the dividend distribution,” the tax court said. 

I reached out to Scott White at HOOPP to get more information and he sent me the official response they sent to the Globe and Mail:

HOOPP is disappointed by this tax court ruling and will appeal the decision. As the issue is still before the courts, HOOPP cannot comment any further on this matter. This initial ruling on events that occurred between 2013 and 2018 will have no impact on HOOPP’s ability to pay pensions to our members today or in the future.  

And remember back in October 2025, HOOPP issued this statement on its website:

HOOPP firmly rejects allegations from Dutch authorities

HOOPP has been informed that it will be summoned in the Netherlands regarding a dispute over dividend withholding tax refunds on Dutch shares it purchased beginning in 2013 and ending in 2018. HOOPP is surprised and disappointed by this decision and will vigorously defend itself against these allegations.

HOOPP has been cooperating with the Dutch Tax Authority in the Netherlands for many years on this issue. HOOPP is confident that it was the beneficial owner of the shares and therefore entitled to the tax refunds. This issue is about a dispute over the interpretation of a discrete Dutch tax provision, which HOOPP believes should be solely adjudicated by a tax court.

These allegations will have no impact on HOOPP’s ability to pay pensions to our members today or in the future. 

I had discussed this case on my blog here when it first broke out in 2019.

Alright, let me get to into this and share my thoughts.

First, the case is clearly being appealed as HOOPP feels it did not violate Dutch tax laws so I understand why they cannot comment further on this matter.

Now, let's say HOOPP loses the case and is ordered to pay $346 million as well as the $65 million in interest charges to Dutch tax authorities. Will this hamper its ability to pay pensions.

Of course not, HOOPP manages $123 billion as at December 30th 2024 so it can easily pay $411 million and have no liquidity issues whatsoever to pay current and future pensions.

The hit will be felt at the investment level however as it will show up as a loss from a strategy they undertook.

Is this the same thing as the AIMCo vol blowup?

No, the AIMCo vol blowup led to a loss of $2.1 billion which represented a more serious amount relative to total assets at the time and was clearly an investment risk problem.

The only similarity is if HOOPP loses the case, its members will eat the loss.

HOOPP undertook at “dividend stripping” strategy in the Netherlands which involved buying shares for a short period before a dividend is declared and then selling them back to the original owner via swaps, according to court filings. 

Dutch tax authorities are claiming the strategy was designed to take advantage of HOOPP’s favourable tax status in the Netherlands and that HOOPP used sophisticated contracts with counterparties to exploit its tax status for financial gain.

HOOPP is disputing this, so this isn't a case involving excessive investment risk, but it is a case that involves legal, operational and reputation risk.

To be frank, I'm surprised HOOPP engaged in this strategy in the Netherlands and that the investment committee and Board approved it because of these risks but Jim Keohane (then CEO), David Long and Jeff Wendling (then co-CIOs) obviously made a persuasive case. 

In fact, David Long was the SVP Asset Liability Matching and Derivatives back then and widely recognized as a top derivatives expert along with Jim Keohane so they understood this strategy and all its risks very well. 

Importantly, there is no way they didn't due their due diligence and consult legal firms in the Netherlands to make sure it's a) legal and b) discuss the strategy with their counterparts to make sure it's legal.

This is why HOOPP is contesting the court's decision and it's within its rights to do so but obviously they overestimated the legalities of this strategy and underestimated the blowback.

Again, in my opinion, not worth the reputation risk nor do I consider this "real alpha" in nay sense and if I was sitting on that investment committee I would have voted against this strategy even if it was considered legal by outside experts. 

What do I mean by real alpha? HOOPP engages in many absolute return strategies internally, mostly arbitrage strategies going long/ short securities and investing in external hedge funds where they cannot replicate alpha internally.

Dividend stripping isn't what I consider alpha,  even if you're using swaps to make it look very sophisticated, it's totally bogus in my opinion (again, my opinion).

And that begs the question whether those gains were used to claim "value add over their benchmark" to justify paying bonuses to senior managers.

Those bonuses were paid and if HOOPP loses the case, members will eat the loss and it will not make a material impact on total fund assets but it might make one on investment performance the year that loss is claimed if they lose the case.

It's not Jim Keohane, David Long or Jeff Wendling who are going to pay the price even though the strategy fell under their watch, they're long gone and collected their bonuses. 

Again, HOOPP might win the appeal and this might all turn out to be a mute point but I'm sharing with you my insights and the way I see it from the outside, this strategy might have looked like easy money back then, it turned out to be a major headache for the organization, potentially costing it reputation damage.

And I strongly doubt any other Maple 8 engaged in it exactly for the reasons I'm citing above, not worth it, wouldn't be approved by their Board and certainly not considered real alpha. 

The vol selling AIMCo was doing others were doing as well, including HOOPP, but they managed risk a lot tighter and didn't lose anywhere near as much.

I've seen plenty of sophisticated strategies blow up at La Caisse and PSP during my time there, a lot of smart people doing stupid things. 

It happens, people use the pension fund's balance sheet to gamble and sometimes they win big and sometimes they lose huge.

Also worth noting that Morgan Stanley settled its dividend stripping case with Dutch tax authorities last year after a decade-long dispute:

A decade-long court case between US bank Morgan Stanley and the Dutch tax authorities has been settled, ‘Follow the Money’ has discovered. Jan van de Streek, Professor of Tax Law, spoke to the news platform: ‘I'm surprised Morgan Stanley paid everything.’

For more than a decade, US bank Morgan Stanley has been embroiled in a lawsuit with the Dutch tax authorities over dividend stripping. Investigative journalism platform Follow the Money recently discovered that the case has been settled. The bank must pay the tax authorities a sum of almost 200 million euros. ‘I am surprised that Morgan Stanley has paid everything, both the claimed tax and interest,’ says Van de Streek. ‘I am curious what the bank got back in return for that settlement.’

According to the professor, rising interest rates may have played a role: ‘That tax rate was 7.5% in 2024. Suppose the bank still lost the case, that interest rate could have reached enormous proportions.' The settlement does not relieve the US bank of all litigation in the Netherlands. A criminal case is still pending with the Public Prosecution Service. According to Van de Streek, there is a chance that the prosecution will drop the case: ‘The fact that Morgan Stanley has resolved the case fiscally is positive. The prosecution will undoubtedly take that into account when considering whether or not to pursue the criminal case.'

In November of last year, Bloomberg reported that Morgan Stanley was fined €101 million (US$117 million) by the Dutch public prosecutor over dividend tax evasion and deliberately filing incorrect tax returns:

The fines for carrying out Cum-Cum trades were imposed on two Morgan Stanley companies in London and Amsterdam, according to a statement by the Dutch public prosecution service on Thursday. Cum-Cum trades allowed foreign owners of stocks to avoid withholding tax by lending the securities during dividend season to an exempt entity such as a local bank. 

Morgan Stanley “through a specially designed structure, ensured that parties who were not entitled to a dividend tax offset or refund could still wrongly benefit from a portion of the offset dividend tax,” the prosecutor said.  

The fine is in addition to the tax due that Morgan Stanley paid to Dutch authorities at the end of 2024.

Under Dutch law, domestic dividend recipients are entitled to the right to offset dividend tax if they are the ultimate beneficiaries of those dividends. The prosecution service said that Morgan Stanley established a Dutch company that acquired shares between 2007 and 2012, but held them only briefly around dividend dates, receiving a total of €830 million during these short-term holding periods.

The firm offset the dividend tax withheld on these shares, totalling €124 million, in five corporate income tax returns between 2009 and 2013, it said.

The bank is “pleased to have resolved this historical matter, which related to corporate tax returns filed in the Netherlands over 12 years ago,” a Morgan Stanley spokesperson said. The bank had previously rejected the allegations.

It's not exactly the same case or structure which is why Morgan Stanley settled its case but it didn't look good.

Anyway, I hope HOOPP wins this case but I must admit, from the outside, it doesn't look good. 

Keep in mind, unlike other Maple 8 funds, HOOPP is a private trust and doesn't have to disclose anywhere near as much as its peers, it discloses a lot and is very transparent but I doubt we will get a detailed assessment of what happened here if the Dutch court of appeals doesn't overturn the verdict. 

Lastly, and most importantly, HOOPP is doing great, it's delivering alpha and beta and didn't really need to engage in this strategy and it has more than enough assets to pay current and future pensions no matter what happens in this case. 

It's new CEO Annesley Wallace has a clear strategy and a vision and she had nothing to do with this strategy even if she inherits any potential fallout.  

Below, in this episode, the Compliance Officers Playbook podcast unpacks the major enforcement action taken against Morgan Stanley after Dutch authorities uncovered its role in coordinated tax evasion schemes. Following extensive audits and criminal investigations, regulators issued a €101 million fine—the maximum possible—after determining that the firm used complex trading and derivative strategies to exploit dividend withholding tax rules.

Again, this was illegal which was why Morgan Stanley settled its case, not the same as the HOOPP case. Just sharing this to show you why these strategies are not worth the operational and reputation risks. 

A little over a month ago, James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reported that CPPIB’s private-equity head steps into uncertain market aiming to sharpen portfolio’s focus:

It wasn’t supposed to be Caitlin Gubbels’s job to make big changes when she took charge of the $146-billion private-equity business at Canada’s largest pension fund manager. But the market for deals is changing in ways that make it impossible to stand still.

In October last year, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board promoted Ms. Gubbels to global head of private equity at a moment when that industry’s deals, and the outsized returns they were known for, had largely dried up.

A frenzied period of deal-making in 2020 and 2021 led to a “lack of discipline” on the part of some investors, she recalled in an interview. That frothy market soon collided with a quick rise in interest rates, which put pressure on company valuations and made it harder to recycle cash that was tied up in investments. As a result, the performance of private-equity portfolios has largely been “treading water” for five years.

Then, U.S. President Donald Trump’s aggressive campaign to raise tariffs plunged markets into uncertainty just as two major trends that could reshape the private equity sector picked up steam. Artificial-intelligence tools emerged that could decide which companies in investors’ portfolios are winners or losers, and retail investors gained increasing access to private markets in a development that could pour a flood of new capital into the system.

“If 2025 has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is certain any more,” Ms. Gubbels said. For private-equity investors, “the market has been tricky and it’s getting trickier.”

Ms. Gubbels has experience stepping into a new role during market turmoil: She started her career in investment banking at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in 2007, on the cusp of a global financial crisis. “Great timing, nailed the timing,” she said, dryly.

Less than four years later, eager to switch to the “buy-side” of the investing world, she joined CPPIB. Within a decade she was leading the fund-investing side of the organization’s private-equity arm.

Since becoming the unit’s global head, she has worked to sharpen the focus of CPPIB’s roster of investments and partnerships, aiming to make sure it doesn’t get caught out by a changing market, and to boost its returns back to a level that private-equity investors expect.

CPPIB’s private-equity portfolio, which makes up about one-fifth of its $777.5-billion in assets, earned an 8.7-per-cent return last fiscal year, bringing its five-year average to 14.7 per cent annually. Even that five-year performance missed CPPIB’s internal benchmark of 20 per cent, as the public stock portfolios that private equity is measured against outperformed.

From the outset, Ms. Gubbels asked her team to “look in the mirror” and question whether they were focusing CPPIB’s capital on deals and partnerships where the fund has a competitive advantage, taking a more top-down view instead of evaluating each transaction on its own terms.

CPPIB commits about half the money in its private-equity portfolio to third-party funds, and co-invests the other half in deals led by a few dozen core private-equity partners, including about 35 firms focused on buyouts in the U.S. and Europe.

“I did ask the team: Really map the market. Let’s make sure that we are in the right number of partners for our strategy,” Ms. Gubbels said.

As the private-equity market has shifted, so have the internal discussions that CPPIB convenes to assess potential deals and construct its portfolio.

For one thing, “you can’t get through an investment committee meeting without talking about AI, nor should you,” she said.

Her team is working on developing new screening tools to flag companies in sectors that are likely to be disrupted, so CPPIB can make “no-regrets decisions to pass” on some deals, she said. And they hope AI will help the fund see which of its investment partners are doing lots of deals, or who need liquidity, so they can seize investment opportunities more quickly.

They have also taken a hard look at companies in CPPIB’s existing portfolio, especially software providers, to gauge which ones could benefit from AI and which might lose out. In the past, private-equity investors have been stung when the valuations attached to companies in certain sectors suddenly reset at lower levels, making it near impossible to sell at the prices they anticipated.

So far, however, “I don’t see distress and I don’t see friction, necessarily, from AI,” she said.

But with political tensions over trade and social-media posts that can change policy, investment committee discussions are also spending more time on “stroke-of-pen risk, regulatory risk, disruption risk,” she added.

The recent boom in the secondaries market – where investors buy and sell stakes in private-equity funds – could also challenge the dominance of big institutional funds and change the way they invest. CPPIB has been a regular participant in secondaries deals for years, long before they entered the mainstream. But new funds tailored to wealthy retail investors could ramp up competition for deals and create a more fluid market.

“I do believe institutional capital is still a very compelling proposition to the private-equity market. It is sticky, it is consistent and it has been through cycle,” Ms. Gubbels said. “And we have yet to see how retail performs through cycle.”

For now, the private-equity market is “still digesting that peak” from five years ago, she said.

“I don’t think there’s a silver bullet to the 2020, 2021 vintages,” she added. “It’s just going to take a long time to work through.”

As that happens, Ms. Gubbels expects private equity will bounce back and is confident that new investments made today will pay off. “I would say I’m actually quite optimistic,” she said.

Two weeks ago, Layan Odeh and Paula Sambo of Bloomberg reported Canadian pensions that oversee US$1.2 trillion revamp to private equity model:

For the likes of Blackstone Inc. and KKR & Co., a multibillion-dollar opportunity beckons from Canada.

Some of the country’s biggest pension funds are looking to scale back their direct private equity bets, according to people familiar with the matter. Instead, they’re moving to invest more through established buyout giants, or partner on deals with other big investors such as endowments and sovereign wealth funds.

Already, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the country’s largest such money pool, has shifted some private equity holdings into a separate group and is considering taking on more passive co-investments, according to public records and some of the people familiar with the matter. The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System overhauled its private equity unit, bringing in a new external head, halting direct buyouts in Europe and cutting a team focused on the asset class in Asia.

In interviews earlier this year, the chief executive officers of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec each said they’re trying to control risk by leaning more on partners and third-party firms to help them manage private investments.

Altogether, the large Canadian pension funds known as the Maple Eight have amassed more than $400 billion of private equity holdings, a sum that’s equivalent to roughly a fifth of their assets. But with deal activity remaining muted, it has become harder for some pension managers to justify the heightened risks and extra resources needed to manage controlling stakes in companies, according to people familiar with the industry.

“Private equity investing is resource intensive and very, very complex,” said David Scopelliti, the global head of private equity and private credit at Mercer, one of the world’s largest outsourced asset managers.

Omers, a $141 billion fund that’s long been the most active in direct investing, made notable changes, including launching a global funds strategy and shutting its European direct-investment arm after some bets struggled. It has completed only one direct buyout — the acquisition of IT-services firm Integris — in the past two years, according to its website.

The pensions may be confronting the reality that private equity’s golden age has passed, according to Ira Gluskin, former chair of the University of Toronto Asset Management Corp. Many funds built sizable internal buyout teams during a period defined by cheap leverage, soaring valuations and easier exits — conditions that no longer exist.

“You cannot do the same thing every year and hope to be successful in this very competitive environment,” Gluskin said in an interview.

Once seen as a path to superior performance, direct ownership has, at times, added operational headaches for Canada’s pension managers, according to people familiar with the matter. Moreover, it’s tough for these public entities to compete with giant alternative investment firms for talent.

Still, pension firms that have been scaling back on direct ownership have stressed that they’re not abandoning the strategy. It’s a matter of being more selective about what they do and where they do it, rather than ditching the direct model altogether.

This story is based on interviews with more than 20 people familiar with the industry, including Canadian pension plan officials and fund managers. Some of them asked not to be identified discussing matters that are sensitive.

Omers said it’s still committed to doing buyouts in North America, including having controlling stakes in firms. The manager is expanding its private equity funds program to complement that and help with diversification, Chief Investment Officer Ralph Berg said in a statement.

La Caisse said partnerships are an established part of its strategy, but that it remains primarily a direct investor in private equity.

Ontario Teachers’ said direct investments represent about 75 per cent of its private equity capital today, with the other 25 per cent in funds run by outside firms. The pension plan believes it can get the best results by doing both, according to Dale Burgess, executive managing director of equities.

“Our approach will continue to include investing directly in businesses — particularly in areas where we have a deep track record and in-house capabilities — as well as investing strategically with leading general partners that can deliver performance, unique insights, and co-investment opportunities,” Burgess said in a statement.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board declined to comment.

Ontario Teachers’ pioneered direct investing by major Canadian pensions more than 30 years ago. For a long time, in fact, it controlled one of the country’s most beloved businesses — the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey club — and made a fortune when it sold.

By the mid-2000s, several of Canada’s big pension plans had evolved into global private equity dealmakers, competing against buyout firms to avoid outside fees and exert more control over portfolio companies. In one notable example a decade ago, CPPIB went alone in buying lender Antares Capital from General Electric Co. in a US$12 billion deal, beating other suitors including Apollo Global Management Inc. and Guggenheim.

When interest rates started going up in 2022, private equity returns sagged and liquidity dried up. The United States Federal Reserve’s recent rate cuts are fueling hopes of a deal comeback, but Apollo’s Scott Kleinman anticipates that private equity firms will keep selling their assets at a slower pace for the next few years.

And PwC said this month that “deal volume remains anemic,” though U.S.-based private equity firms are getting some larger transactions done.

For Canada’s pensions, the sluggish environment means some portfolio companies bought with cheap money are now harder to offload at desired valuations. Earlier this year, Omers’ plans to sell Premise Health Holding Corp., a U.S. health care provider, faltered when the pension manager failed to fetch a price that met its expectations, some of the people said.

In 2012, Omers bought U.K.-based Lifeways Community Care, which supports adults with disabilities, with the goal of scaling the business. But instead, the company stumbled and the Canadian pension transferred ownership to lenders in 2023.

Omers also had to write down its US$325 million investment in Northvolt AB, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. last year. Other pension plans, such as La Caisse, also took losses on their investments in the Swedish battery-maker.

Revamping buyouts

Even so, there are some bright spots — including signals that deals are starting to move. CBI Health, one of Omers’ longstanding portfolio companies, agreed to sell its home-care business to Extendicare Inc. this month. Ontario Teachers’ has struck deals to sell its stakes in at least three companies since the start of the year, according to its website. In July, the pension said it’s buying a Spanish chain of dental clinics.

And earlier this month, CPPIB committed US$600 million to invest in Boats Group alongside General Atlantic, with both the pension and the private equity firm controlling the company.

Meanwhile, the pension funds are restructuring for the future. Ontario Teachers’ shuffled its private equity team with at least five senior managers leaving or stepping down from their roles, including the head of the unit, Romeo Leemrijse. During its search for a replacement, the firm spoke with senior executives from other pension managers, according to people familiar with the matter, before ultimately promoting Burgess, an internal candidate formerly focused on infrastructure.

CPP Investment Board, for its part, moved some of its holdings into what it calls the “integrated strategies group,” a mix of businesses the fund has owned for a while and that don’t easily fit into the current strategies of its investment departments. The group includes two reinsurance companies and a large minority stake in agribusiness Bunge Global SA.

The pension is also considering doing more co-investing — transferring some of the due diligence burden to its partners — as well as boosting its number of fund investments, people familiar with the matter said. Those have delivered better returns than buying controlling stakes, even accounting for extra fees, after the pandemic and elevated rates weighed down the performance of some of its portfolio companies.

Omers is cutting its entire Asia direct buyout team as of Dec. 31. It has put cash into Thoma Bravo’s buyout strategy and is in talks to collaborate with several fund managers, including Warburg Pincus, according to people familiar with the matter.

Some of the changes enable pension funds “to access more deal flow, and really leverage the deeper relationships and networks, maybe even some specialized expertise,” Mercer’s Scopelliti said.

Even with all of these staff and strategy overhauls, private equity remains “a very core and strategic asset class” for Canada’s pensions, according to Sunaina Sinha Haldea, global head of private capital advisory at Raymond James Financial Inc. “As the markets shift they’re willing to be flexible and to shift back and forth with them.”

For Gluskin, the former University of Toronto Asset Management chair, the pension funds’ change in approach isn’t a mystery or even a failure. It’s a rational response to a new investing environment.

Their earlier model was built for a different era, and the game has changed.

The private equity game has indeed changed, that's for sure.

I remember setting up private equity at PSP Investments with Derek Murphy back in 2004-05, things have changed drastically in 20 years.

There is a lot more competition nowadays from GPs and LPs, financial engineering is all but dead, but one thing remains the same, private equity is very much a relationship business where you need to partner up with top funds to gain access to solid co-investing opportunities.

In other words, at large shops like CPP Investments and PSP Investments, it's all about fund investing and co-investing to reduce fee drag and maintain a healthy allocation to the asset class as assets grow.

And that's pretty much how it is at the rest of the Maple 8, some did purely direct deals years ago, OMERS still does some but that form of direct investing is becoming rare, it's next to impossible to compete with top funds with access to top talent and top deals.

I can pretty much assure you that all the Maple 8 funds are in deep reflection mode when it comes to private equity.

Publicly they will say they remain committed to the asset class but privately there are a lot of discussions going on in the background and it doesn't help that public equity markets keep roaring higher and higher (creating a huge benchmark issue).

In fact, there are so many issues in private equity that the only good news is the industry is keenly aware of them and working through them, slowly but surely.

Caitlin Gubbels who heads the largest private equity portfolio among global institutions discusses excesses of vintage year 2021-22 and how the industry is working through those issues.

Vintage year diversification remains the most important risk tool of any private equity portfolio, you don't want to get overexposed to terrible vintage years, leaving you little choice but to use secondaries to sell fund stakes at a discount.

The rise of secondaries is unquestionable a good thing but vintage years 2021-22 were awful, too much silliness going on, much like Canadians listening to Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem during the pandemic saying "go out and buy a house, rates will stay ultra low for a very long time" (he later regretted saying this).

Of course, rates normalized since pandemic lows in March 2020 and the private equity industry was caught with its pants down (as were many Canadians who took out a huge mortgage 5 years ago).

The days of financial engineering are long gone, value creation is what it's all about and AI is being used to enhance value and mitigate risks, but it's also creating more competition in some industries (like software) and that too is wreaking havoc in private equity.

Moreover, talking to some CIOs like OTPP's Gillian Brown, there is definitely a structural shift going on in private equity and if you're not ahead of it, you will feel the pain.

The good news is rates have come down, M&A picked up nicely in 2025, more deals are being announced but the deal-making environment remains muted compared to the past.

What else worries me? Inflation from tariffs has yet to show us in any significant way but if it does, watch out, rates are headed back up, it will hurt many of the smaller funds in private equity struggling to keep up (the big funds will put money to work to seize opportunities as they arise).

Private equity is also ramping up fundraising but with exits remaining muted, investors (LPs) are increasingly demanding for returns and not signing on blindly to continuation vehicles.

In short, private equity remains messy and tricky to use Caitlin Gubbels' words. 

It remains an important asset class which offers better alignment of interests over the long run and better governance and sustainability but it's far from easy, the fat years in PE are over.

I'm expecting a major shakeout will take place over the next three years, many funds will disappear.

On that cheery note, let me wrap this up.

Below, Collin Roche, Co-CEO of GTCR, the $50B private equity powerhouse, joined Bloomberg Open Interest to talk about where dealmaking goes next, and why discipline is back in vogue.

Also, last week, Altimeter Capital founder and CEO Brad Gerstner joined CNBC's "Halftime Report" to debate whether AI will be the death of software and how he's trading the sector. Great discussions, listen to their comments. 

Rian Howlett , Karen Friar and Ines Ferré of Yahoo Finance report Dow, S&P 500 jump to records, Nasdaq surges as stocks end 2026's first week with big gains: 

US stocks rose to all-time highs on Friday as investors assessed the December jobs report to end a jam-packed first full trading week of 2026.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC) gained 0.6%, notching a new record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) rose around 0.5% to also post an all-time high close. The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) jumped 0.8%, marking a winning week for all three major averages.

Markets on Friday were focused on two potential catalysts: the December jobs report and the chance of a decision from the Supreme Court on the legality of Trump's sweeping tariffs.

The nonfarm payrolls report, which returned to its normal cadence following disruptions from the government shutdown, showed the US added 50,000 jobs in December. Payroll growth fell short of economists' expectations of about 70,000 positions added, sealing bets that the Federal Reserve will stand pat on interest rates in less than three weeks.

The unemployment rate declined to 4.4%, from 4.6% in November, carrying 2025's labor market theme of a “no-hire, no-fire” economy through the end of the year.

Wall Street was also on alert for a tariffs ruling from the Supreme Court, which could carry huge implications for US economic strategy if the levies are found to be unlawful. Friday came and went without a decision. The court indicated its next opinion day would come Wednesday, Jan. 14.

Meanwhile, investors are weighing the latest developments in the US moves on Venezuela. Trump said he has canceled a second wave of attacks in the country, citing cooperation over US plans to rebuild its crumbling energy infrastructure. The White House has called a meeting with global oil majors on Friday to discuss the fate of Venezuela's huge reserves.

On the home front, Trump said he has directed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to buy $200 billion in mortgage-backed securities, in a bid to lower mortgage rates and address growing affordability concerns. Markets are assessing the potential fallout, given details around that plan remain unclear. 

Sean Conlon and Pia Singh of CNBC also report the S&P 500 ends Friday with another record close, scores a winning week: 

The S&P 500 rose to new highs on Friday, notching a weekly gain, following the release of the latest jobs report.

The broad market index closed up 0.65% to 6,966.28, a fresh record close. It also notched a new all-time intraday high in the session. The Nasdaq Composite gained 0.81% to 23,671.35. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 237.96 points, or 0.48%, to end at 49,504.07, scoring a new closing record as well.

The three major averages posted a winning week. The S&P 500 is up more than 1% week to date, while the Dow and Nasdaq have each jumped roughly 2%.

The December jobs report showed nonfarm payrolls increasing by 50,000 last month, less than the 73,000 that economists polled by Dow Jones had estimated. That data, though slightly weaker than expected, showed a U.S. economy that’s still trudging along, with investors anticipating that growth will ramp up.

The unemployment rate inched down to 4.4%, while economists had forecast 4.5%. Traders took that as a sign that improvement in the economy would happen soon.

Considering the latest payrolls data alongside the JOLTS and ADP reports released this week, Anthony Saglimbene of Ameriprise Financial believes the consensus around the U.S. employment backdrop is that it has “softened” but is also “remaining firm.” This reflects a “low-hire, low-fire” environment, he added.

“What could have been a risk is that you could have seen employment fall off a little bit more than expected, and I think that would have maybe kind of concerned investors,” the chief market strategist said. “We get through the week on the employment side with mostly as-expected numbers, which I think is a positive.”

The December report was the first month of jobs figures unaffected by the record-setting U.S. government shutdown. That stoppage posed data collection challenges for the Bureau of Labor Statistics with regards to October and November: The agency said that a full October jobs report wouldn’t be released, and the November report was delayed.

“This nonfarm payrolls report is the first report in a couple months that the data is clean,” Saglimbene said. “Looking at these numbers, it suggests that the Fed probably doesn’t need to cut in January, and maybe they don’t need to cut in March as well.”

Shares of homebuilders supported the broader market Friday after President Donald Trump directed “representatives” to buy mortgage bonds as a way to drive rates down for homebuyers. D.R. Horton jumped more than 6%, as did PulteGroup. Lennar advanced more than 7%. Home improvement stocks such as Home Depot also gained.

Stan Choe of the Associated Press also reports Wall Street rises to more records after unemployment rate improves:

U.S. stocks hit records Friday following a mixed report on the U.S. job market, one that may delay another cut to interest rates by the Federal Reserve but does not slam the door on it.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.6% and topped its prior all-time high set earlier in the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 237 points, or 0.5%, and likewise set a record, while the Nasdaq composite led the market with a 0.8% gain.

The moves came after the U.S. Labor Department said employers hired fewer workers during December than economists expected, though the unemployment rate improved and was better than expected. It reinforced how the U.S. job market may be in a “ low-hire, low-fire” state and may hopefully avoid a recession.

On Wall Street, power company Vistra soared 10.5% to help lead the market after signing a 20-year deal to provide electricity from three of its nuclear plants to Meta Platforms. Big Tech companies have been signing a string of such deals to electrify the data centers powering their moves into artificial-intelligence technology.

Oklo jumped 7.9% after saying it also signed a deal with Meta Platforms that will help it secure nuclear fuel and advance its project to build a facility in Pike County, Ohio. 

Homebuilders and other companies involved in the housing market were strong in their first trading after President Donald Trump announced a plan to lower mortgage rates. Trump on late Thursday called for the purchase of $200 billion in mortgage bonds, similar to how the Fed in the past has bought bonds backed by mortgages to bring down mortgage rates.

Builders FirstSource, a supplier of building products, jumped 12% for one of the biggest gains in the S&P 500 along with Vistra. Among homebuilders, Lennar rallied 8.9%, D.R. Horton climbed 7.8% and PulteGroup rose 7.3%.

They helped offset a 2.7% drop for General Motors. The auto giant said it will take a $6 billion hit to its results for the last three months of 2025 related to its pullback from electric vehicles. That’s on top of the $1.6 billion in charges GM took in the prior quarter. Fewer tax incentives and easier fuel-emission regulations have been eating into demand for EVs. 

WD-40 tumbled 6.6% after reporting a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Chief Financial Officer Sara Hyzer said the soft numbers were primarily because of timing issues, not weaker demand from end customers, and the company stood by its financial forecasts for the upcoming year.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 44.82 points to 6,966.28. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 237.96 to 49,504.07, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 191.33 to 23,671.35.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were mixed.

Friday’s improvement in the unemployment rate was enough to get traders to ratchet back expectations for a cut to interest rates at the Fed’s next meeting, which is scheduled for later this month. Traders are now forecasting just a 5% chance of that, down from 11% a day before, according to data from CME Group. 

But traders nevertheless still largely expect the Fed to cut rates at least twice this upcoming year.

Whether they’re correct carries high stakes for financial markets. Lower interest rates can goose the economy and push up prices for investments, though they can also worsen inflation at the same time. And inflation has stubbornly remained above the Fed’s 2% target.

“Until the data provide a clearer direction, a divided Fed is likely to stay that way,” according to Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. “Lower rates are likely coming this year, but the markets may have to be patient.”

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.16% from 4.19% late Thursday. It tends to track expectations for longer-term economic growth and inflation.

The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks forecasts for what the Fed will do with short-term interest rates in the near term, rose to 3.53% from 3.49%.

A separate report released Friday morning suggested sentiment among U.S. consumers is strengthening, particularly among lower-income households. Perhaps more importantly for the Fed, the preliminary report from the University of Michigan also said expectations for inflation in the coming 12 months may be at their lowest level in a year. That could give it more freedom to cut interest rates. 

Hopes for both lower interest rates and a solid economy have helped other areas of the stock market climb recently, wresting leadership away from the Big Tech and AI stocks that dominated the market for years. The smaller stocks in the Russell 2000, for example, climbed 4.6% this week, much more than the 1.6% rise of the S&P 500.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.

The French CAC 40 climbed 1.4%, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.6% for two of the world’s bigger gains. 

Alright, busy first week of trading so let me get right to it.

First,  as shown below, the Consumer Discretionary sector led the S&P sectors this week, surging 5.8%, followed by Materials (+4.8%) and Industrials (+2.5%):

Amazon (AMZN) makes up 23% of the Consumer Discretrionary sector (Tesla makes up 21%) and it surged 9% this week, inching closer to its 52-week high:

Remember, Amazon was a laggard last year among the Mag-7 and almost everyone on Wall Street expects it to come back strong this year.

While Amazon's performance this week was impressive, there were other more impressive top performing US large cap stocks over the past 5 sessions:

Once again, Chinese biotech Regencell Biotech Holdings led the pack higher after gaining a jaw-dropping 17,500% last year, but many other stocks caught my attention this week.

Like what? Like Kratos Defense (KTOS), Oklo (OKLO), Bloom Energy (BE), Sandisk (SNDK), Applied Digital Corp (APLD), Nuscal Power Corp (SMR), Victoria's Secret (VSCO), Lam Research Corp (LCRX), Microchip Technology (MCHP) and Intel (INTC) (see full list here).

Interestingly, despite the whole Venezuela attack, energy stocks were not among the very top gainers but some did very well like SLB (SLB), Valero (VLO) and Haliburton (HAL).

Basically, oil service stocks and refiners that will benefit as Venezuela fixes its decrepit oil infrastructure.

If anything, this week was a strong week for a number of industries as performance was spread out among a number of them: defense, homebuilders, mining, tech, etc.

I truly believe 2026 will be a stock picker's year but it will not be easy and I expect a lot of volatility.

Once again, this year will reward nimble traders who know how to navigate the noise.

And you can't just look at US large caps this year, check out this week's top performing mid and small cap stocks (full list here and here):

 

A lot of biotechs I track closely took off this week, powering the small cap Russell 2000 index up almost 5%.

In fact, the 5-year weekly charts of the S&P Biotech ETF (XBI) and Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) are making new highs and looking great here (buy every dip as long as it remains above 10-week exp moving avg):

 

There are a lot of biotechs that don't figure into the indices and doing spectacular already and I foresee others taking off as news comes in, so be mindful that it's an industry where experts perform best.

I'll give you one example that took off this week, MoonLake Immunotherapeutics (MLTX) after the FDA cleared existing SLK data For HS BLA Path. Stock was trading at cash levels after the huge dump back in October:

Didn't take a genius to take risk at those levels (welcome to the wacky world of biotech). 

Alright, let me end this comment by stating I didn't feel like writing a long Outlook 2026 this year mostly because I've been spectacularly wrong in previous years and so have many others.

We know this year will be a continuation of last year, AI will remain a dominant theme, expect a fever pitch when OpenAI goes public.

We also know SpaceX will file for an IPO and that too is positive for Risk On markets. 

But as the first week of the year taught us, there are many unknowns including the Supreme Court's decision on tariffs due out next week and a lot more in geopolitics and markets.

Remember my advice, stay nimble and sweep the table when up big (trim positions).

Also, as far a the broadening trade, keep an eye on the S&P Equal Weight ETF (RSP) as it keeps making a new high (extremely bullish): 

 Below, former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the December jobs report, impact on the Fed's interest rate outlook, and more.

Also, CNBC's "Closing Bell" team discusses markets, investment strategy and more with Rich Saperstein, founding principal and chief investment officer of Treasury Partners.

Third, CNBC’s “Power Lunch” team discusses markets and the AI trade with Julian Emanuel of Evercore ISI.

Fourth, CNBC’s “Power Lunch” team discusses health care and pharma stocks as momentum in the sector builds with Jared Holz of Mizuho.

Lastly, CNBC's "Closing Bell" team discusses whether the market technicals indicate that stocks can go higher and more with Jeff deGraaf, chairman and head of technical research at Renaissance Macro Research.

Private Equity Insights reports Oakley Capital takes majority stake in GLAS alongside La Caisse:

Oakley Capital has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Global Loan Agency Services, strengthening its exposure to infrastructure supporting the fast-growing private credit market

The investment will be made alongside a minority stake from Canadian pension fund La Caisse.

The UK-based private equity firm said its fund will contribute up to £55m, equivalent to about $73.9m, for its share of the transaction. Financial terms and the overall valuation of GLAS were not disclosed. However, Reuters reported last year that a sale of the business could value the company at around £1bn, or approximately $1.34bn.

The stake is being acquired from US buyout firm Levine Leichtman Capital, which confirmed it has sold its holding in GLAS for an undisclosed sum. Levine Leichtman acquired its stake in the business in 2022 and will retain a small shareholding following the transaction.

Founded in 2011 and headquartered in London, GLAS provides administration services across the debt markets, including private credit, leveraged finance, capital markets, and bankruptcy proceedings. The company administers more than $700bn of assets, according to its website.

Oakley said GLAS founder and chief executive Mia Drennan will continue to lead the company alongside the existing management team. Commenting on the transaction, Drennan said: “Oakley has a strong track record supporting global market leaders, and we are excited about the opportunities this partnership, alongside La Caisse, will unlock for GLAS.”

The deal underscores continued private equity interest in specialist services businesses linked to private credit and leveraged finance, as assets under management across alternative lending strategies continue to expand globally.

La Caisse issued a press release stating it is investing alongside Oakley Capital in institutional debt administration provider GLAS:

Oakley Capital, a leading mid-market private equity investor, is pleased to announce it is acquiring a majority stake in GLAS (“Global Loan Agency Services”), a leading, global provider of loan administration and bond trustee services. Oakley is investing alongside La Caisse (formerly CDPQ) which has acquired a minority position, as well as Levine Leichtman Capital Partners who will retain a small stake in the business.

Founded by Mia Drennan and Brian Carne in 2011, London-headquartered GLAS offers a wide range of administration and trustee services for the credit markets, including private credit and leveraged finance. The company oversees the lifecycle administration of debt instruments, including transaction execution, interest determination, cash flow coordination and stakeholder communications, underpinned by regulatory and structural requirements for independent agency providers. Operating with over 450 employees across 16 offices in Europe, America, APAC and Middle East, GLAS services a portfolio of over $750 billion across its global platform.

The global private credit market which GLAS serves today exceeds $2.4 trillion in AUM and is expected to surpass $4.5 trillion by 2030, supported by healthy fundraising momentum into the asset class from a wide array of institutional and retail investors, as well as continued diversification into broader credit segments, including infrastructure, asset-backed and specialty finance. Against this backdrop, GLAS benefits from high barriers to entry and strong recurring revenues, driven by regulatory licensing requirements and the rising need for sustained investment in technology.

In recent years, GLAS has enjoyed 40% organic revenue growth thanks to its premier service, its global tech-enabled platform, and strong relationships with leading lenders and law firms. The company has also benefitted from its ability to support complex transactions, including restructurings and multi-jurisdictional mega loans.

GLAS will continue to be led by CEO and Founder Mia Drennan, alongside her existing executive management team, Ethan Levner CFO and Joanne Brooks, CCO. Oakley will support GLAS to accelerate growth through international expansion, M&A and the continued development of the company’s technology and AI offering.

Peter Dubens, Oakley Capital Co-Founder and Managing Partner, said: “Mia has successfully built a global leader in the market for debt administration, a market with strong and attractive growth characteristics. We are pleased to be partnering with such an accomplished entrepreneur and look forward to supporting the next phase of GLAS’ growth.”

Martin Longchamps, La Caisse Executive Vice-President and Head of Private Equity and Private Credit, said: “GLAS sits at the heart of the fast-growing private credit ecosystem. Its global presence, technology leadership, and deeply embedded relationships with leading clients make it an asset well positioned for continued growth. We look forward to partnering with Oakley and GLAS to support the platform’s next successful chapter.”

GLAS Founder and CEO Mia Drennan, said: “We wanted to work with a like-minded partner with an entrepreneurial approach and a reputation for working successfully with founders. Oakley has a strong track record supporting global market leaders, and we are excited about the opportunities this partnership, alongside La Caisse, will unlock for GLAS.”

ABOUT OAKLEY CAPITAL

Oakley Capital was founded 20 years ago to be the partner of choice for exceptional founders and entrepreneurs. We back private, pan-European businesses with an enterprise value from €100m to €1bln+, acquiring control or co-control stakes and supporting complex deals such as carve‑outs.

We have a diverse team of over 200 professionals working across five locations, including London, Munich, Milan, Madrid, and Luxembourg, offering us genuine European reach and local cultural expertise.

Our unique origination capabilities help us unearth attractive opportunities across our four core sectors: Technology, Business Services, Digital Consumer and Education. We focus on building long-lasting, repeat partnerships with exceptional founders, many of whom go on to invest in our funds. www.oakleycapital.com

ABOUT LA CAISSE

At La Caisse, formerly CDPQ, we have invested for 60 years with a dual mandate: generate optimal long term returns for our 48 depositors, who represent over 6 million Quebecers, and contribute to Québec’s economic development.

As a global investment group, we are active in the major financial markets, private equity, infrastructure, real estate and private credit. As at June 30, 2025, La Caisse’s net assets totalled CAD 496 billion. For more information, visit lacaisse.com or consult our LinkedIn or Instagram pages. 

GLAS also issued a press release stating it entered 2026 with two new strategic partners: 

London (5th JANUARY, 2025)

GLAS enters 2026 with two new strategic partners: Oakley Capital, a leading European mid-market private equity firm, and La Caisse, one of Canada’s largest institutional investors (formerly CDPQ). This partnership sets the stage for GLAS’ next phase of growth.

Under the agreement, Oakley has acquired a majority stake in GLAS from Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP). La Caisse takes a minority position, and LLCP retains a small stake. Together, the investors will help GLAS accelerate international expansion, pursue M&A, and continue enhancing its technology and AI capabilities.

Founded with just £6,000 of capital in late 2011 by Mia Drennan and Brian Carne, GLAS is a global provider of loan administration and bond trustee services. With an international platform spanning the UK, Europe, the Americas, APAC, and the Middle East, GLAS manages over $750 billion in assets.

The private credit market it serves exceeds $2.4 trillion and is expected to surpass $4.5 trillion by 2030.

“We wanted a like-minded partner with an entrepreneurial approach and a reputation for working successfully with founders and management teams,” said GLAS CEO and Founder Mia Drennan. “Oakley’s track record in supporting global market leaders, alongside La Caisse’s expertise, will unlock exciting opportunities for GLAS to become a multi-billion-pound platform in the future.” 

Peter Dubens, Oakley Capital Co-Founder and Managing Partner, added: “Mia has successfully built a global leader in the market for debt administration, a market with strong and attractive growth characteristics. We are pleased to be partnering with such an accomplished entrepreneur and look forward to supporting the next phase of GLAS’ growth.” 

Martin Longchamps, La Caisse Executive Vice-President and Head of Private Equity and Private Credit, commented: “GLAS sits at the heart of the fast-growing private credit ecosystem. Its global presence, technology leadership, and deeply embedded relationships with leading clients make it an asset well positioned for continued growth. We look forward to partnering with Oakley and GLAS to support the platform’s next successful chapter.” 

GLAS will continue to be led by Mia Drennan, alongside the existing executive team, including Ethan Levner, Chief Financial Officer, and Joanne Brooks, Chief Commercial Officer.

More information can be found on Oakley Capital’s announcement here.

Oakley Capital’s full press release can be found here.

La Caisse’s announcement can be found here.

Levine Leichtman Capital Partners’ full announcement can be found here.

About GLAS

GLAS was established in 2011 as an independent provider of institutional debt administration services. The company was originally created to provide the market a willing participant in complex loan restructuring transactions where many large institutions are reluctant to take swift and cooperative action. It offers a wide range of administration services developed specifically for the debt market.

GLAS is recognised as the premier independent, non-creditor, conflict-free provider of loan agency and bond trustee services, with excess of $700bn of assets under administration on a daily basis. For more information, contact media@glas.agency.

This is another excellent co-investment by La Caisse, taking a minority stake in a fast-growing company in a red hot segment of the debt market.

GLAS is a quite an impressive company. From its press release:

Founded with just £6,000 of capital in late 2011 by Mia Drennan and Brian Carne, GLAS is a global provider of loan administration and bond trustee services. With an international platform spanning the UK, Europe, the Americas, APAC, and the Middle East, GLAS manages over $750 billion in assets. 

Its founder, Mia Drennan (see top of post), was featured in the Times stating she wanted to be a fighter pilot but instead set up one of the biggest global loan agencies. 

Ms. Drennan is the founder and  CEO, has an impressive resume and a list of accomplishments which you can read here including EY Entrepreneur of the Year (2025).

The company is set to grow as the private debt market takes off. 

From La Caisse's press release:

The global private credit market which GLAS serves today exceeds $2.4 trillion in AUM and is expected to surpass $4.5 trillion by 2030, supported by healthy fundraising momentum into the asset class from a wide array of institutional and retail investors, as well as continued diversification into broader credit segments, including infrastructure, asset-backed and specialty finance

The addition of these two strategic investors will allow GLAS to expand its global presence and operations. 

Martin Longchamps, La Caisse Executive Vice-President and Head of Private Equity and Private Credit, commented: 

“GLAS sits at the heart of the fast-growing private credit ecosystem. Its global presence, technology leadership, and deeply embedded relationships with leading clients make it an asset well positioned for continued growth. We look forward to partnering with Oakley and GLAS to support the platform’s next successful chapter.”  

Well done, Oakley and La Caisse will help GLAS realize its next growth trajectory.

Below, GLAS founder and CEO Mia Drennan sits down with AccessFintech's Cory Olsen to discuss setting up a business in the world of fax's and women within the industry (August, 2024).

Also, in this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, host Tony Clark sits down with Mia Drennan, co-founder and executive chair of GLAS, to discuss leadership and innovation in global financial services (July 2025).

Lastly, Georgie Frost of Business reporter sits down with Mia Drennan to discuss GLAS's success (November 2025). 

Very interesting discussions, this lady and the company she founded is quite impressive.

On Tuesday, HOOPP announced on LinkedIn the appointment of Chantale Pelletier as Senior Managing Director & Head of Global Infrastructure.

With more than 25 years of experience in infrastructure investing and financial services, Chantale will lead our infrastructure investment program and play an important role in advancing our investment approach, helping to deliver long-term value for members.

There was no formal announcement on HOOPP's website, only on LinkedIn.

However, HOOPP did put a profile of Chantale on its website as she already started working there:

Chantale Pelletier joined HOOPP in January 2026 as Senior Managing Director and Head of Global Infrastructure. In this role, she leads the Fund’s global infrastructure investment program and plays a key role in advancing HOOPP’s Total Portfolio Approach, supporting integrated, long-term value creation across the portfolio.

Chantale brings more than 25 years of experience as a senior investment executive in infrastructure and private markets, with a career spanning global institutional investing and asset management platforms. She has been involved in building, scaling, and managing global infrastructure portfolios across renewables and energy transition, transport and mobility, digital infrastructure, utilities, and other essential services. Her experience includes portfolio construction, capital allocation, risk management, governance, and value creation.

Prior to joining HOOPP, Chantale held senior executive roles with global asset management firms, including Global Head of Infrastructure at Fidelity International and President and Chief Executive Officer of Schroders Capital Management (France), with responsibility for global infrastructure investment strategy and oversight.

She previously spent more than 20 years at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), where she held senior leadership roles and contributed to the development and growth of the organization’s global infrastructure investment platform.

Chantale brings extensive board and governance experience across infrastructure and industrial sectors, including board service at Keolis, Eurostar, Fluxys, Plenary Group, London Array, Budapest Airport, Pomerleau and Previan.

Chantale began her career at Deloitte as a Consultant in Financial Services. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from HEC. 

This is a big nomination for a very important and rapidly growing asset class at HOOPP so it deserves my full attention and yours as well.

Let me begin by congratulating Chantale for this appointment. She has a very impressive background and is now responsible for a very important asset class at HOOPP. 

She looks awfully familiar to me from my days at La Caisse years ago but I'm getting old and my mind plays tricks on me sometimes so I'm not sure if we crossed paths.

Chantale is replacing Stephen Smith who is retiring form the organization after 15 years there and helped build HOOPP Infrastructure from nothing via partnerships and co-investments.

Importantly, prior to the pandemic, HOOPP hardly invested in infrastructure and  was a huge laggard in the asset class compared to its Maple 8 peers.

It didn't detract from its performance which is stellar and leads the Maple 8 over a 20-year period but HOOPP was always known as a massive LDI/ liquid absolute return shop with a huge fixed income portfolio and decent real estate and private equity portfolio, not for its infrastructure portfolio which took hold under former CEO Jeff Wendling's watch.

And now that Annesley Wallace is the CEO, given her experience in running one of the best and biggest infrastructure portfolios in the world at OMERS, I'm not surprised she is keenly focused to take this portfolio to another level.

I'm certain it was Annesley who hired Chantale for this position even if she will be reporting to CIO Michael Wissell (all investment heads report to him, unless Chantale reports to Annesley).

Why? Because Michael previously worked at OTPP and if he was the person hiring, I pretty much know who he would have chosen, a former colleague of his that we both respect.

But Annesley is the boss and she knows infrastructure extremely well and knows where she wants to take it. I'm certain she chose Chantale because she trusts her and feels confident this is the right person with the right experience and qualifications to deliver on the mandate.

From HOOPP's 2024 annual report:

Infrastructure investing encompasses the facilities, services and installations considered essential to the functioning and economic productivity of a society. HOOPP Infrastructure (HI) aims to deliver attractive, sustainable returns through high-value and long-duration investments in sectors such as communications and data, power generation and transmission, energy, transportation and utilities. HI is executing on this mandate through a combination of direct deals, a small number of private infrastructure funds and related co-investments.

In 2024, HI delivered an annual hedged return of 12.3%. Net asset value grew $1.8 billion, reaching $7.6 billion or approximately 6% of the Fund by year end. 

HI’s largest and longest-held assets in the transportation, utilities and communications and data sectors were key contributors to the $776 million return. HI’s fund investments performed consistently, and in line with expectations, with each fund’s respective development stage, delivering solid returns from a highly diversified portfolio of assets.

The infrastructure asset class continues to evolve and be influenced by major changes in capital flows and increases in the capital needs of infrastructure businesses. Over time, these changes should lead to more favourable investment conditions in the asset class.

Now, $7.6 billion out of $123 billion at the end of 2024 represents 6% of the total fund which is decent but still way below its peers that typically have 15% or more in infrastructure.

For example, OMERS Infrastructure now headed up by Michael Hill manages close to $40 billion in assets out of a total $140 billion for the fund (see 2024 figures here).  That represents just under 30% of total assets and is a huge contributor to OMERS' long-term success.

I clearly remember a conversation I had a years ago with former CEO Jim Keohane where he praised OMERS' infrastructure portfolio saying it was one of the best in the world but he also told me that valuations in the asset class were sky high and he didn't want to rush in there, choosing his spots selectively.

Jeff Wendling who succeeded Jim had a more concrete plan for infrastructure and worked closely with Michael Wissell and Stephen Smith to scale up that asset class. 

But now it has to go from 6% of total assets to 15% over time so I'm interested in chatting with Annesley when I get the opportunity to see how they will grow that asset class. 

Again, Annesley Wallace had a lot to do with the success of OMERS' infrastructure portfolio, it's an asset class she knows extremely well and one of the reasons HOOPP's board of directors appointed her CEO, so it's normal that she wants to be implicated in that portfolio along with Michael Wissell and now Chantale Pelletier who will be directly responsible for it.

[Note: I was told Annesley didn't move into Jeff Wendling's old office, preferring a smaller one where she initially worked on the same floor with the investment team. She wants to be close to the investment group.] 

I suspect partnerships and co-investments will continue in the near term but as the asset class grows, expect more direct deals there.

It takes time, infrastructure is an asset class that can't be scald up over night, and you need the right strategy.

Alright, let me wrap it up, hope my comments weren't too controversial, I call it like I see it and cut to the chase (if I'm wrong or overstepping/ over-conjecturing, Scott White will put me in my place). 

Lastly, HOOPP recently issued a press release stating it has surpassed the 500,000-membership mark, an important milestone that reflects HOOPP’s growth and ongoing evolution with Ontario’s healthcare sector:

“For over 65 years, HOOPP has been helping our members retire with confidence,” said Annesley Wallace, HOOPP’s President and CEO. “Surpassing 500,000 members reflects the trust the healthcare community has placed in us, and it underscores the value the Plan delivers. We remain committed to our pension promise and building a stronger financial future for Ontario healthcare workers.”

The half million membership includes more than 300,000 active members – one of the highest active-to-retired ratios among Canada’s major pension plans. These numbers reinforce the strength and long-term stability of HOOPP and its ability to deliver secure, reliable pensions for decades to come. It also marks important progress toward the goals in HOOPP’s Strategic Plan, including having more than 600,000 members and 1,000 employers by 2030.

HOOPP surpassed 500,000 members in late December when the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) officially joined the Plan, meaning every hospital in Ontario is now a participating employer. HOOPP ended 2025 with more than 850 participating employers and remains the pension plan of choice for the province’s health care sector.

The addition of SickKids welcomed more than 6,500 new members. Registered Nurse Erica O’Keefe represents the 500,000th member. “I became a nurse because I wanted to make a real difference for people when they need it most,” she said. “The people who work at SickKids are what makes the hospital exceptional. HOOPP gives my colleagues and me peace of mind about our future, so we can focus on taking care of our patients today.”

HOOPP members benefit from portability within Ontario’s healthcare sector – meaning they can move between HOOPP participating employers with the confidence of knowing their pension will remain secure and continue to grow. As more members join the Plan, HOOPP becomes even better positioned to deliver long-term value while maintaining strong funding levels. At the same time, increased enrollment supports the broader healthcare system by providing workforce stability, while enhancing employers’ ability to attract and retain top talent.

“We know that a strong pension offering is crucial to a healthy, happy and productive workforce,” said Ivana Zanardo, HOOPP’s Head of Plan Services. “By knowing their retirement security is in safe hands with HOOPP, healthcare professionals can focus their energy on delivering exceptional care to patients and communities across Ontario.” 

Quite a milestone, HOOPP members are very lucky, I tell all my physician friends working in Ontario to look into whether getting a HOOPP pension makes sense for them, it certainly does for younger doctors looking to retire in dignity and security.

Below, a conversation with Annesley Wallace, President & CEO of HOOPP, on the critical role HOOPP plays in securing the financial futures of its members. As HOOPP’s new leader, Annesley is charting an ambitious strategic plan to maximize the value of the Plan, strengthen the resilience of its investment portfolio, and adapt with the healthcare community to remain its pension plan of choice (Canadian Club Toronto, September 2025).