The people that run CPP are underperforming, and paying themselves handsomely to do so.
First, the underperformance:
While the Fund earned an average of 8.8 per cent annually, [passive investing] earned 10.7 per cent – nearly two full percentage points more, on average, every year. These are staggering numbers. Take that first measure, the annualized 0.5 percentage point gap since 2007. Compounded, it means the contribution of active management has been to reduce the size of the national nest egg by more than $100-billion. Had the Fund stuck to passive management, its portfolio would today stand, not at $793-billion, but somewhere north of $900-billion.
And then there are the employees. The CPP has increased the number of staff more than tenfold:
From around 150 employees in 2006, the CPPIB has ballooned to more than 2,000 today. Personnel costs now total over $1.2-billion… Total costs, … exceed $5.4-billion. Twenty years ago they were $54-million.
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The top five most highly compensated managers at the CPPIB make an average of more than $5-million each, including salaries, bonuses and other benefits. Twenty years ago the corresponding figure was less than a sixth of that.
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The chair of the CPPIB board this year will be paid more than $300,000 – three times what her predecessor was paid in 2006.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-cpp-investment-board-cppib-benchmarks/
It’s also worth mentioning they are guaranteed a bonus no matter how poor they perform, and they have been making their own metrics to “beat” to generate larger bonuses.
Millennial Moron has a great explanation of the finer details.
If the youtuber didn’t have such a deadpan presentation you would think this was some kind of madcap sitcom plot!
Thanks, that was an interesting video.