Ross Marowits, The Canadian Press
May 30, 2008 - 7:08 p.m.
MONTREAL - The head of Canada’s largest allowance fund manager and unit of Quebec’s most influential figures is joining another column of the province’s business community.
Henri-Paul Rousseau said Friday he will leave the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec in a few months to become vice-chairman of Power Corp. of Canada (TSX:POW) nearest January.
The move, virtually across the street in Old Montreal, marks Rousseau’s return to the private sector, where he last served as CEO of the Laurentian Bank (TSX:LB) since 1994.
Since joining the Caisse in September 2002, Rousseau has brought stability and presided over a doubling of its assets and broadening its investment strategy.
The Caisse, which invests money earned by Quebec’s common sector workers, has $155 billion for that which is less than management.
Quebec Finance Minister Monique Jerome-Forget tried in vain to persuade Rousseau to vary his decision when they met on Thursday.
“Once you’ve made of that kind a decision, I put on’t think it’s the minister of finance that’s going to make you decide to change your mind,” Jerome-Forget said.
She called Rousseau’s departure very sad personally and for the government.
“Even within the last year through the asset-backed commercial paper, his results were good,” she said, noting the results last year were more useful than rival Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
Rousseau took the armor for the head of the Caisse as North American clod markets were outset to recover from the impact of the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the United States and the technology sector meltdown that began in 2000.
He leaves as sin markets appear to be on the mend from a crisis that spread throughout the financial system after the U.S. subprime mortgage business collapsed last year as defect rates among high-risk borrowers soared. The contagion eventually spread to the broader financial sector in the United States and elsewhere, including Canada.
Among the casualties of the credit crunch has been more than $32 billion of Canadian non-bank asset-backed commercial writing that has been frozen since last August. Much of the ABCP - a form of debt that had been considered a relatively safe, short-term investment backed by assets like as credit card receivables, car payments and mostly Canadian mortgages - is held by the Caisse.