An unspecified number of employees of the Caisse de dépôt’s real estate subsidiaries, Ivanhoé Cambridge and Otéra Capital, will lose their jobs as part of a vast reorganization which is expected to generate annual savings of $100 million.
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“At this stage, we will not provide a figure on the number of jobs. Work is underway in each team to optimize resources, processes and systems. Our employees will be informed of their status by the end of April,” said Wednesday at Newspaper a spokesperson for the Caisse, Kate Monfette.
Ivanhoé and Otéra will be fully integrated into the Fund within 18 to 24 months, the institution said. The Caisse will purchase the interest of minority shareholders in the two subsidiaries: the Desjardins Movement Pension Plan (Ivanhoé and Otéra), Rio Tinto (Ivanhoé) and the Montreal police officers (Ivanhoé).
“This integration is based on the vision of a consolidated Fund that maximizes its impact and its performance, to offer the best service, at the best cost, to our depositors,” explained the CEO of the institution, Charles Emond, in a statement.
The boss at Santé Québec?
The CEO of Ivanhoé Cambridge, Nathalie Palladitcheff, will leave her position at the end of April. She will not receive severance pay, assured Mme Monfette. She has headed Ivanhoé since March 2018. According to rumors, she is being approached to become Minister Christian Dubé’s “top gun” at the head of the new Santé Québec agency.
The last few years have been very eventful for the real estate subsidiaries of the Caisse. In 2019, our Bureau of Investigation revealed significant governance problems at Otéra, which led to the dismissal of the latter’s CEO, Alfonso Graceffa. The pandemic then profoundly disrupted Ivanhoé’s activities, particularly in the shopping center and office building sectors.
Ivanhoé Cambridge has carried out several waves of layoffs since 2020. The most recent dates from November.