CPPIB Canadian general partner Q3 2008 performance numbers

The CPP Investment Board put out their assets under admin figures last week, and they got great press for their relative performance. With assets of $108.9 billion, they likely haven’t yet surpassed the figures of the Caisse de Depot (see prior post “Is CPPIB now on top?” February 9-09)

This post is the latest in the series covering the Canadian general partners that have been lucky enough to receive a limited partner commitment from the CPP Investment Board (see prior post “CPPIB Canadian general partner Q2 2008 performance numbers” November 22-08). For the seventh consecutive quarter, Canada’s very own national pension fund didn’t make a single new direct formal commitment to a Canadian general partner other than Onex Corp.

The CPPIB team did commit, however, to 17 U.S. and international GPs during 2008 (ahead of the four per quarter pace of 2007). 32 of the last 33 direct GP commitments have been outside of Canada, despite the fact that the Canadian banking system and economy are probably the safest pair in the world right now.

If you are a regular visitor to the site, you’ll know that we pull the figures showing the performance results that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is receiving from its GP relationships (they’ll want me to remind you that’s calendar Q3, not CPPIB’s fiscal Q3).

The figures that follow cover four categories: CPPIB’s commitment, paid-in-capital (which tells you how much of the fund is invested in deals and/or drawn to pay management fees) reported value, and reported value + distributions (which tells you what the notional simple return of the fund is against the paid-in-capital figure). That figure is based in large part on what the manager believes the portfolio is worth as at September 30, 2008, subject to GAAP fair value accounting. MM means millions.

As we’ve As we’ve done in the past, I’ve added our own Fund II returns (as at Q3/08) as they get muddled when included as part of the CPPIB Legacy fund of fund program that committed $10 million in December 2004 (back when Edgestone ran the program for CPPIB) to our $83MM Wellington Financial Fund II. Fund II ceased pursuing new transactions in August 2006 with the first closing of our $150MM Fund III that month (CPPIB doesn’t have $ in our Fund III via TD’s VC fund-of-fund program):

Canadian Venture and Life Science Funds

Celtic House VP Fund II (2002 US$):
$13.5MM, $14.9MM (110%), $9.5MM, $20.3MM (+36.2%)

Celtic House VP Fund III (2005 US$):
$50MM, $25.5MM (51%), $16.9MM, $17MM (-33.3%)

Edgestone Venture Fund (2000):
$50MM, $45MM (89%), $10MM, $56.0MM (+26%)

Edgestone Venture Fund II (2004):
$50MM, $40MM (79%), $34MM, $34MM (-14.6%)

Lumira/MDS Life Sciences Technology Fund II (2002):
$200MM, $108MM (54%), $54MM, $109MM (+1.4%)

Skypoint Telecom Fund II (2001 US$):
$25MM, $22.8MM (91%), $9.6MM, $13.3MM (-41.7%)

TD Capital Legacy VC Fund (2002):
$82MM (originally $100MM), $60MM (73%), $36MM, $46MM (-23.2%)

Ventures West 8 (2003):
$50MM, $37MM (73%), $28MM, $30MM (-19.1%)

Wellington Financial Fund II (12/2004):
(CPPIB participated in our $83MM Fund II via a $10MM commitment by the Legacy VC Fund)
$83MM fund size, $56.3MM (67.9%), $7.6MM, $69.7MM (+24%)

Canadian Buyout & Debt Funds

Birch Hill Equity Partners III (2005):
$85MM, $71MM (83%), $73MM, $76.8MM (+7.2%)

Edgestone Equity Fund II (2002):
$100MM, $79MM (78.7%), $56MM, $113MM (+43.5%)

Edgestone Equity Fund III (2006):
$100MM, $48MM (47.8%), $31MM, $45MM (-5%)

Edgestone Mezzanine Fund II (2000):
$30MM, $29.2MM (97%), $3.6MM, $29MM (-0.7%)

Kensington Co-investment Fund (2002):
$40MM, $42MM (106%), $24MM, $66MM (+55%)

Onex Partners (2003 US$):
$150MM, $139.2MM (93%), $150.5MM, $313.1MM (+124.9%)

Onex Partners III (2008 US$):
$400MM, $0, $0, $0

TD / CPPIB CDN Private Equity Holdings I (2006):
$400MM, $121MM, (30%), $98MM, $105MM) (-13%)

TD Capital CFOF Legacy Buyout (2002):
$121MM, $106MM (87.6%), $82MM, $132MM (+24.2%)

Tricap Restructuring Fund (2001):
$150MM, $287MM (95.5%), $25MM, $248MM (+32.7%)

Tricap II (2006):
$300MM, $287MM (95.5%), $182MM, $267MM (-6.9%)

Based upon drawn capital, it might be safe to assume that the following funds will be in fundraising mode in 2009, if they aren’t already: Birch Hill at 83%, Edgestone Venture II at 75%, Tricap II at 96% and Ventures West at 73%.

Unless the data entry clerks made another batch of mistakes (see prior post “CPPIB fixes Celtic House return data glitch” October 2-08), as these latest figures suggest that Birch Hill went from 49% drawn to 83% and that Tricap II went from 63% drawn to 96%, both over the period of a single quarter.

I’ll tackle the non-Canadian GPs tomorrow.

MRM