The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec wants to continue to increase its impact on the Quebec economy. The institution remains focused on its target of holding 100 billion in assets in Quebec by 2026, its director, Charles Emond, said on Wednesday. The Caisse also wants to continue to focus on the “immense potential” of artificial intelligence to increase its returns. Report.
“We already have a strong presence here. We are invested in 550 companies in Quebec. And our ambition is to have even more impact,” underlined Charles Emond, president and CEO of the Caisse de dépôt, during a conference organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal.
In 2014, the value of the Caisse’s Quebec assets was approximately 60 billion Canadian dollars. It amounted to 68 billion in 2020, then to 88 billion last year. The objective? 100 billion by 2026.
“Our presence is equivalent to 16% of Quebec’s entire gross domestic product. What that means for you is that your Fund is the most invested pension fund in the world in its local economy,” argued Mr. Emond.
Concerning the deployment of the Caisse’s investments in Quebec over the next two years to reach the objective of 100 billion: “The files we like are when a Quebec company is going to buy a company outside. These are files that we put on our fast track », indicated Mr. Emond.
The Fund is also banking on “major projects”, “major infrastructure projects”, added its manager. In this regard, the institution must also submit its report to the government for the establishment of a structuring transport network in the Capitale-Nationale region in the coming weeks.
Better analytics thanks to artificial intelligence
On another note, the head of the Fund also underlined “the immense potential” of artificial intelligence (AI) as a performance lever for his institution. “We are developing our own capabilities to enrich our decision-making and make our processes more efficient,” he said.
Thanks to these new technologies, “we will be able to triple, or even quadruple, the production of memos and notes summarizing the quarterly calls of portfolio companies,” Mr. Emond gave as an example.
“We also analyze a number of data that would be impossible to analyze humanly so quickly. To give you an order of magnitude, there are 75,000 data points that are now analyzed every day to predict the monthly return on thousands of securities,” he added.
Another example of the use of AI: the “predictive value of language”. During conferences or calls with financial analysts, the comments of management teams are scrutinized by analysis tools. These can then reflect future trends.
“The language you use has predictive value for us,” said Mr. Emond, addressing the audience of business people who came to listen to him.
The implementation of these new technologies is already starting to bear fruit. “In two years, we started from an incubator and today, out of our stock market portfolio of 115 billion, we have 20 billion which are managed by our managers, who use a systematic approach based on artificial intelligence. […] This 20 billion mandate has a performance that is in the first quartile of global equity managers,” argued Mr. Emond.