Canada Pension Bids $3.4 Billion for Intoll Group

The conditional offer marks the Toronto-based fund manager's second attempt to purchase an Australian toll road operator, following a failed bid to take control of Transurban Group in May.

(July 15, 2010) — The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board made a $3.4 billion non-binding takeover bid for Macquarie Group Ltd.- backed Intoll Group, a Sydney-based owner of infrastructure assets. The bid marks the board’s second attempt to buy an Australian toll-road operator in eight months.

The offer puts a spotlight on the attractiveness of infrastructure assets, such as toll-roads and airports, that have become targets of investment for the world’s pension funds as a result of their stable, long-term streams of revenue.

“We believe Intolls toll road assets are a good fit with CPPIBs portfolio and long-term investment mandate and are well-situated strategically to benefit from future urban growth in Toronto and Sydney,” Andre Bourbonnais, senior vice president of private investments at the pension fund, said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg.

The bid for Intoll, which is 18% owned by Macquarie Group, spun out of Macquarie Infrastructure Group six months ago, would reach $4.5 billion including debt, the Financial Times reported.

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Last year, the Canadian pension fund joined the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and Australia’s sovereign wealth fund The Future Fund to launch a $6 billion takeover for Australia’s biggest toll-road operator, Transurban Group.

The Toronto-based CPPIB invests surplus cash from the national Canada Pension Plan.

To contact the <em>aiCIO</em> editor of this story: Application Administrator at <a href='mailto:pvasan@assetinternational.com'>pvasan@assetinternational.com</a>; 646-308-2742

(July 15, 2010) — A judge has ordered the Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System (SCERS) to release pension information to the public.

In a ruling this week, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Allen Sumner ordered the release of the names of retirees and how much they receive, highlighting the increasing scrutiny that pensions face — from officials, advocacy groups and the media — as local governments and the state confront growing deficits.

In a ruling against the county system, Judge Allen Sumner wrote that the “the public interest in disclosing this information outweighs any interest in keeping it secret.”

Other funds, such as the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), have already released that information. At the state level, pensions above $100,000 a year for CalPERS and the California teachers system, CalSTRS, were posted online by an advocacy group.

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The lawsuit this week was brought against the SCERS by The Sacramento Bee and First Amendment Coalition, which are demanding details of pension spending.

Chief executive of the county’s retirement system, Richard Stensrud, said he will recommend the system appeal Tuesday’s decision, asserting that the fund disagrees with the ruling and believes it’s an erroneous interpretation of the law.

“We think it’s clearly correct in light of the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling that public employee salaries are public information,” said Attorney Karl Olson, who represented The Sacramento Bee. “Pensions are a huge issue for our cash-strapped state and local governments, and the records at issue here will shed important light on that issue,” he told the publication.

To contact the <em>aiCIO</em> editor of this story: Application Administrator at <a href='mailto:pvasan@assetinternational.com'>pvasan@assetinternational.com</a>; 646-308-2742