CEO Sabia to step down from Caisse
MONTREAL The longest-serving boss in the history of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is moving on.
Michael Sabia, 66, will leave his post as president and chief executive in early February after an 11-year run, the Caisse said Tuesday. An international search firm has been hired to help the board find a replacement.
Sabia had previously said he didn’t expect to complete his second mandate, which was due to end in March 2021.
Sabia, a former CEO of Montreal-based telecom giant BCE Inc., will leave behind a global investor after strengthening risk management, overhauling investment strategies and revamping executive teams. Under his watch, the strategy delivered average annual returns of 9.9 per cent over a decade while net assets almost tripled to $326.7 billion — as of June 2019 — from $120.1 billion in 2008.
“He’s done a great job,” Michel Nadeau, a former Caisse vice-president who now serves as executive director of the Institute for Governance of Private and Public Organizations, said.
“He will go down as one of the best CEOS in Caisse history.”
Sabia was hired by then- Quebec premier Jean Charest to replace Henri-paul Rousseau with the Caisse still reeling from a record 2008 loss of $39.8 billion amid the global financial crisis. The meltdown forced the Caisse to take a massive writedown on its assetbacked commercial paper portfolio while depressing the value of its publicly traded stock holdings.
Nadeau and former premier Bernard Landry were among observers at the time to criticize Sabia’s appointment because of his lack of familiarity with the pension fund industry and his status as an Ontario-born outsider to Quebec.
“Mr. Sabia brought confidence and reassurance,” Louis Hébert, a professor of management strategy at the HEC Montreal business school, said.
“He stabilized the Caisse, steered it through a turbulent period and put it on the path to global growth. With him, it felt like the upper management of the Caisse was in control again.”
Unlike other pension fund managers, the Caisse has a dual mandate of maximizing returns for retirees while contributing to economic development in its home province. That second mandate has sometimes sparked controversy — such as three years ago, when the Caisse backed the acquisition of Quebec retailer Rona Inc. by U.S. rival Lowe’s Cos.
The University of Toronto said Tuesday it hired Sabia as the new director of its Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Postmedia News