Canadian Pension Giant Omers Directly Funds Technology Start-Ups

2000年DOT-COM泡沫的破裂与2008年的金融崩溃之间的时期对安大略省市雇员退休系统（OMERS）的投资哲学产生了深远的影响。虽然其风险投资池中的潜在投资仍然存在兴趣，但随着当时的情况而言，基于大型的养老金计划的喜好和风险模式已经过。尽管经济玫瑰色经济，投资的价值仍然是平坦的或下降的，但一般伙伴关系/有限的伙伴关系模式导致经济不对，并且仅在十年或更长时间后产生了回报。

In 2008, Omers announced it would no longer invest in venture funds; however, it still wanted to stay in the venture capital universe. Enter the pension fund’s newOmers Ventures部门,削减的风险资本基金middlemen and invests directly in a variety of companies, largely start-ups. Launched in October 2011, Omers Ventures has been able to accumulate a portfolio that “I would have never imagined at this time,” says John Ruffolo, the division’s CEO. Companies on the pension fund’s investment roster include Kitchener, Ontario–based electronic education software company Desire2Learn and Vancouver-based construction e-commerce site BuildDirect. But perhaps the biggest name to get an injection of funds from Omers is Vancouver-based social media management tool creator HootSuite, which in March 2012 got $20 million from the Canadian pension fund. About a month ago Montreal–based PasswordBox, a site that manages and protects users’ online passwords, became the latest start-up to secure venture capital from Omers, which led a $6 million round of funding that also saw a number of Silicon Valley investors chip in, including Lee Linden, head of Facebook e-commerce.

Ruffolo，Deloitte的前全球税务领导人和加拿大行业负责人的会计公司的技术，媒体和电信惯例被挖掘为风险投资资助部门的首席执行官。目前，除了Ruffolo之外，omers冒险团队还包括15人。他希望随着时间的推移将该数字增长到18次，没有设定截止日期。

Ruffolo表示，创造omeers风险企业的最重要原因是，风险投资支持投资，特别是在加拿大，往往会孵化并产生比养老基金准备处理的回报。也就是说，omeers企业的目前正在考虑到长期回报。在投资的成立后至少七年，预计实际退货将没有预期。然而，已经有早期成功的迹象。“在投资于这些公司的18个月后，我们所有的后期投资都在我们首次投资于他们的论文之前，”Ruffolo说。

Omers Ventures selects its investment targets by researching new markets and performing “very rigorous due diligence” on the companies it believes are best positioned to capitalize on large market opportunities, notes Ruffolo. The group divides its venture capital investments into three parts: one third seed, one third early-stage and one third late-stage. By doing so, explains Ruffolo, the board of Omers Ventures is willing to take bets on some of the early-stage venture capital opportunities while still ensuring a strong risk-adjusted profile.

At the moment, Omers Ventures is taking a decidedly conservative approach to the role of direct venture capital in its investments. Presently, the venture capital division accounts for some C$400 million ($376.2 million) of Omers’s C$60 billion portfolio. Ruffolo says that although there is no official target, the eventual goal is to have C$1 billion in venture capital. “The cycle will take us about ten years to deploy all of that,” he explains. “What will start to happen is that investments you’ve invested in for ten-year periods would start to realize, and in essence you redeploy realized assets. In effect it becomes an evergreen fund.”

遗漏是加拿大唯一的养老基金，已停止投资任何风险投资资金，并开始直接投资投资。在遗迹中，企业范围内的专注于直接拥有和积极管理资产，从2008年底到今年年底的70％增加到88％，长期目标是95％。“虽然[作为养老基金]我们是第一个采用这种模式的人，我们绝不会成为最后一个，”Ruffolo说，暗示全球养老基金可能会对直接风险投资投资感兴趣。

Victoria Ivashina, an associate finance professor at Harvard Business School and a fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, is the co-author of a report titled “The Disintermediation of Financial Markets: Direct Investing in Private Equity。“她指出，投资风险投资的直接模型是罕见的，具有更好的养老金资金。

“Large funds and government主权财富基金are more inclined to pursue something like that,” she explains. “For them, it makes more sense than [for] a smaller pension fund pursuing direct investments, because there is a nontrivial requirement in terms of resources.” Ivashina adds that in the U.S. there are restrictions against state pension funds acquiring the resources needed to operate a direct investment program.

One point that emerges clearly from Ivashina’s research: Solo or direct investments — that is, without intermediaries — do better than co-investments. “Growth investments and investments in industries that have high research and development budgets do very poorly when completed on their own, versus transactions that are completed with a traditional private equity model,” she explains.

Ivashina说，虽然直接投资不是每个人，但它肯定可以为迄今为止的资金工作，这与美国对手的限制较少。“你需要拥有一定程度的独立性，”她说，“因为你需要能够执行的人，跟进并坐在船上。”

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