The Canadian Press

The head of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board says turbulent stock markets could be a boon for the fund as more companies look for hard-to-find funding.

“There are still challenging market conditions, both from a valuation point of view… and also from a financing point of view,” president and chief executive David Denison said in an interview.

“We think that those play to our strengths because we take a long term perspective on investing, (and) we take a risk adjusted view on investing.”

On Thursday, the CPP Fund said it earned a return 1.8% in its latest quarter to hold $123.9 billion at Dec. 31.

For what was its third quarter, the fund said it generated $2.2 billion in investment income and paid $2.1 billion for CPP benefits.

The fund said it routinely receives more contributions than are required to pay benefits during the first part of the calendar year, and then returns a portion in the last part of the year.

Equities represented 56.1 per cent of the investment portfolio or roughly $69.5 billion including $54.4 billion in public equities and $15.1 billion in private equities.

Fixed income investments, including bonds, money market securities, other debt and debt financing liabilities, represented 30% or $37.3 billion, while inflation-sensitive assets totalled 13.9% or $17.2 billion.

For the nine-months ended Dec. 31, the fund said it earned a return of 14%.

On Tuesday, the fund partnered with Progress Energy Resources (TSX:PRQ) on a private placement worth $350 million.

“We believe (small-to-mid-market funding) is valuable to a number of companies that have very good management teams, have clearly defined understandable strategy but require some additional long-term capital to help enable the execution of a strategy,” Denison said.

“Having us as a long-term anchor equity investor is appealing for them, and appealing for us because we then have a strong, multi-year perspective.

The board also announced last week it would commit $400 million to Canadian private equity and venture capital markets, with the intention of backing small-to-mid-market funds seeking to raise $750 million or less for buy outs, venture capital or growth equity.

During the quarter the fund acquired interests in Livingston International, IMS Health and the Silverburn Shopping Centre.

The board is managed independently from the Canada Pension Plan and invests surpluses in the fund to help pay the future pensions of 17 million Canadians when they retire.