The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System pension fund is launching a new investment entity, and has appointed a Bay Street lawyer to head the division, it announced on Friday.

The new entity, OMERS Strategic Investments, is being launched to invest in a select portfolio of private companies that have global reach.

OMERS appointed Jacques Demers, a senior partner with Ogilvy Renault LLP in Toronto to the position of president and CEO of the division, effective Jan. 1, 2009.

A graduate of Université Laval, Demers has worked in business law for 32 years. He co-founded the Meighen Demers law firm in 1984, growing it from five to 46 practitioners. In 2001 the firm merged with Ogilvy Renault, where Demers served as managing partner of the Toronto office and a senior member of the firm’s executive.

Demers’ practice has been primarily focused on mergers and acquisitions, including infrastructure and natural resource-related projects.

“Jacques’ professional qualifications are ideal in identifying and acquiring companies that, while good investments in their own right, have strategic value to us in surfacing private market assets,” said Michael Nobrega, OMERS president and CEO.

Demers will be responsible for creating a portfolio of “global access companies” that through their work around the world are aware of attractive investments, such as airports, real estate developments, energy projects and other hard assets, before they become generally known to institutional investors, Nobrega said.

“The new investment entity under the OMERS Worldwide brand will be an efficient means of extending the global reach of our real estate company Oxford Properties, our infrastructure company Borealis and the OMERS Private Equity team. It will put them in an advantageous position to evaluate prospective investments for their own portfolios,” he said.

Reporting to Nobrega, Demers will be a member of OMERS senior executive team and the committee that reviews and approves all investments.

Sid Ryan, a director of OMERS and Ontario President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, blasted the appointment of Demers as a hasty decision that lacks due diligence. Ryan said the decision was made during a conference call meeting of the OMERS executive board on Friday, instead of at the regularly scheduled board meeting in December.

Ryan added that Demers would receive a multi-million dollar compensation package.

“It’s mind-boggling that OMERS directors can spend a matter of minutes on an exorbitant compensation package for a rookie at a time when workers are losing their jobs province-wide,” Ryan said in a statement.