New chief investment strategist for CPPIB

Toronto-based Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) has appointed Ed Cass to the position of senior vice president and chief investment strategist and a member of the senior management team, CPPIB said in a statement.

Cass, who is currently vice president and head of Global Tactical Asset Allocation (GTAA) in CPPIB’s Public Market Investments Department, will assume his new role on April 1 and will replace Donald Raymond. He will report to Mark Wiseman, CPPIB’s president and chief executive.

As chief investment strategist of CPPIB – administrator to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) – Cass will be responsible for overall fund level investment strategy. He will also chair the Investment Planning Committee, which approves all new investment programmes and oversees all portfolio risks, including passive, active, credit and liquidity risks, CPPIB said.

Similar to other organisations’ chief investment officer positions, the role nonetheless has some elements that are unique to CPPIB. “We have a ‘Total Portfolio Approach’ which evaluates the portfolio by risk characteristics rather than by asset classes,” a CPPIB spokeswoman told Infrastructure Investor.

Cass has also held other senior leadership positions at CPPIB since joining the organisation in 2008.

Alistair McGiven, a senior portfolio manager in GTAA since 2008, will succeed Cass when he assumes his new role, the spokeswoman said.

According to an earlier CPPIB statement, Raymond is leaving the organisation to assume a leadership role with Alignvest Management.

CPPIB is an investment management organisation that invests the funds not needed by the Canada Pension Plan to pay current benefits on behalf of 18 million Canadian contributors and beneficiaries. In addition to infrastructure, CPPIB also invests in public equities, private equities, real estate, and fixed-income interests.

As of September 30, 2013, the CPP fund totaled C$192.8 billion (€128.4 billion; $173.3 billion).