India has cracked the code on drawing foreign capital: Charles Emond, CEO CDPQ
Justin Trudeau's allegations of «potential» involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June on Canadian soil, the boss of Canada's 2nd largest pension fund, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), said the US and India are the only two outperforming markets in the world.
Without getting drawn into the specific allegations New Delhi has rejected as «absurd» and «motivated», Charles Emond, chief executive, CDPQ, said he did not want to comment on government relations, but added «India is an important part of our APAC strategy,» during an exclusive interaction with ET. «And it remains a country where we continue to see strong potential over the long term.»
He was recently in India, his first visit since he took over in 2020, just a month before Covid paralysed the world.
To put the numbers in perspective, CDPQ – it manages money on behalf of pension and insurance plans — has roughly 12% of its $320 billion of global portfolio of assets marked for Asia.
“Out of the 12 % for Asia Pacific (APAC), India currently stands out with $6.7 bn across all our asset classes (roughly 2% of the total portfolio) that includes real assets meaning infrastructure and real estate, private and public equity. Five or six years ago, it would have been less than half that number,” Emond said.
By further splitting the $6.7 billion figure, Emond emphasised that the fund has a balanced portfolio across all asset classes with about $2bn of real assets –infrastructure and real estate
