Friday, February 6, 2009

Caisse's losses equal that of income trust investors


The Caisse lost $38 billion last year. Roughly equal to the $35 billion of retirement savings lost by income trust investors, and caused solely by Stephen Harper and his
policy lie that income trusts cause tax leakage. Someone should be fired? Ne pensez-vous pas?

Quebec’s Caisse Had C$38 Billion Loss in 2008, La Presse Says

By Frederic Tomesco

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec had a C$38 billion ($30 billion) loss on its investments last year as stocks declined and the fund manager wrote down the value of its asset-backed commercial paper, La Presse reported.

The 26 percent loss was the biggest in the Montreal-based fund manager’s 45-year history, La Presse reported, citing internal Caisse de Depot documents. The figures are preliminary and haven’t been approved by the audit committee, the newspaper said today.

The Caisse, which managed C$155.4 billion at the end of 2007, took a C$4 billion writedown on its C$12.6 billion asset- backed commercial paper holdings, La Presse said. Stock and bond investments lost C$26 billion, while foreign-exchange holdings yielded a loss of C$5 billion, the newspaper said.

Pension funds in Canada dropped by an average of 16 percent last year, according to a January report by Royal Bank of Canada’s RBC Dexia unit. The Caisse is due to report its 2008 results this month.

Caisse de Depot spokesman Maxime Chagnon declined to comment on the La Presse article, when contacted by Bloomberg News.

To contact the reporter on this story: Frederic Tomesco in Montreal tomesco@bloomberg.net.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

oui....time for someone to frappez la rue.

clemendeau

Anonymous said...

Rumours of the losses were prevalent during the last provincial election - of course Charest brushed them off. Being the good Conservative that he is, the losses will be "socialized" and the public will have to pay. Now in time of profit, well those offices sure are nice....

Anonymous said...

How much more can this CON Government continue to steal from the Canadian economy?

It is time for someone to "Frappez la porte" with these CONS.

So true about Charest ... He is an excellent CON. He helped Harper to victory.

Dr Mike said...

Booo hoooooo!!

Waaaaaaaa!!

Suck it up people--these pension funds have so-called financial experts at the helm & lost the money all on their own with no gov`t interference to derail them.

They were even given the capability to own trusts tax free & still they whine.

Tough noogies.

The poor public trust investor was killed on a gov`t whim & who cared.

I care just as much as everyone did about us now for the Caisse.

As I say , suck it up you greedy coupon clippers.

Dr Mike Popovich.