The Oracle of Ontario

65岁的首席执行官吉姆•水蛭的117加元数十亿N ($118.2 billion) Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, is hard to rattle. He comes from a family of generals, attended the Royal Military College of Canada and became a captain in the Canadian Army before going into business. True to a childhood steeped in military discipline, Leech is a hard-core believer that emotion should have nothing to do with investing. But the sale last month of Toronto-based Ontario Teachers’ majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports + Entertainment, which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team as well as the arena where they play, might have stung. After all, the Leafs are to Toronto what baseball’s Yankees are to New York.

除了洋基队赢得了27个世界系列锦标赛之外;自1967年以来，叶子并没有捕获曲棍球的斯坦利杯，自2004年以来尚未制定季后赛。

当养老基金出售其股份时，Leech可能感觉到Leafs又经历了一次痛苦的损失。但是这位安大略省教师协会的首席执行官，以及他18年前进行这项投资的前任们，早就认识到养老金计划可能会带来巨大的影响无论团队赢得还是丢失，都能从叶子中获得良好的利润。叶子卖出了每个家庭游戏，他们的顽固迷花了很多钱跟随他们。安大略省教师从投资中赚取了10亿美元的收入，以帮助支付300,000名基金所涵盖的教师。

The success of the MLSE deal — and, more important, of Ontario Teachers’ portfolio overall — hinges on the unique governance structure that was set up在1990年的计划成立。安大略省教师已经获得养老金ince 1917, but the fund itself was going broke by the late 1980s. The government and the Ontario Teachers’ Federation named Gerald Bouey, former governor of the Bank of Canada, to lead the initiative to replace the sleepy government agency that had managed the fund with a nonprofit private corporation. Ontario Teachers was set up with an independent board that delegates all investment decisions to its CEO. The laid-back Leech gets passionate when he talks about how elected officials, bureaucracy and, certainly, emotion shouldn’t touch Ontario Teachers’ investment decisions, even when they concern unionized teachers and the politicized rhetoric surrounding pensions.

“It’s run like a business,” says Leech during an interview at his office in the North York section of Toronto, Canada’s financial capital. “There is subtlety in that: The board has the power to delegate through the CEO,” Leech says emphatically, meaning the trustees do not get involved in investment decisions.

像企业一样经营安大略省的教师似乎是一件轻而易举的事，但这并不是大多数公共养老基金的运作方式。他们的管理往往更像是摇摇欲坠的政治机器，他们的董事会必须批准投资和资产配置的变动，他们的首席投资官在当选官员的突发奇想下来去去去。而且，与枫叶公司一样，他们中的许多公司也在亏损，因为他们面临着未来回报率微薄、税收收入下降、受益人预期寿命大幅提高以及大幅削减福利的政治压力，特别是在美国。

What Leech oversees, and what Ontario has built over the past two decades, is an in-house asset manager that primarily depends on its own well-paid professionals to make direct investments, rather than hiring expensive consultants and outside firms to do the job. Other Canadian plan sponsors, such as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which each manage more than C$165 billion in pension assets, also employ a direct approach.

It’s a model hard to argue with. Since the beginning Ontario Teachers has earned an average of 10 percent annually. Even APG Asset Management, which runs the biggest Dutch pension fund and has been lauded for its cutting-edge investing, has returned only 7 percent a year since 1993. According to Santa Monica, California–based Wilshire Associates, the median annualized return for U.S. public pension funds was 6.32 percent for the ten years ended June 30, 2012. Ontario Teachers earned 8 percent a year over the decade ended December 31, 2011 (the most recent time period available). No wonder its approach is being emulated, if not downright copied, by investors around the globe.主权财富基金and pension funds have been flying to Canada and knocking on Leech’s door to learn how the Oracle of Ontario does it.

“It’s corporate governance 101,” says Lawrence Schloss, who visited Leech in July 2010, shortly after being named deputy comptroller for pensions and CIO of the $120 billionNew York City Retirement System。“Everyone has to agree that this is the job of the trustee, this is the job of management, then figure out what’s the mission statement, what risk do we want to take, our return objectives, how to execute. It’s the Constitution. In Ontario that’s black-and-white.”

Ontario Teachers is Canada’s largest single-profession pension plan and was set up as an independent organization by the Ontario government and the Ontario Teachers’ Federation. Each appoints four board members and agrees on a chairman: now Eileen Mercier, former CFO of Canadian forest products company Abitibi-Price. To take the business of investing out of the political sphere, the board delegates authority to invest wholly to the CEO, and Leech delegates to his team.

Leech的右手男子是Neil Petroff的首席投资官1993年加入了安大略省教师，该计划的前25名员工之一，只有其第二次CIO。Wayne Kozun监督公共股票的517亿美元，包括一个独立的关系投资组 - 基本上是一个安静的活动家团队。罗纳德·嘲弄运行558亿美元的固定收入组合。Jane Rowe于2010年被录用在她的前任Erol uzumeri留下来形成自己的公司后，接管教师的私人资本。TPC于1991年创建，直接投资于私营公司以及基金，是世界上最大的私募股权群体之一。该单位已产生19.3％的内部返回率;如果它是自己的，它将在私募股权世界中的同行中排名第一。

Stephen Dowd runs the C$8.7 billion direct infrastructure group, launched in 2001 to invest in airports, electrical power generation, water and natural-gas distribution, among other systems. Pension funds around the world are just now trying to increase their infrastructure investments as an alternative to bonds and to protect against inflation. The team at Ontario Teachers is pragmatic: It supplements its direct investing with outside funds when it doesn’t believe it can develop its own talent in a particular sector or country cost-effectively.

安大略教师,838名员工,把它s time in creating the approach now known as the Canadian model. It single-handedly developed the equity derivatives market in Canada as a way to swap out of government debentures, which were its only asset when it was founded. Another milestone came in 1996, when Ontario Teachers made a huge bet that active management would be the path to outsize returns. Its value approach protected against much of the damage others suffered from the 2000 bear market. In 2000 it made a bold move, acquiring all of Cadillac Fairview Corp., a real estate company that operates as a wholly owned subsidiary, after Goldman Sachs Asset Management backed out of a restructuring deal at the last minute. The purchase made Ontario Teachers the first pension plan to own an operating real estate development management company. Now Cadillac CEO John Sullivan runs C$15 billion in real estate for Ontario Teachers.

2004年，安大略省教师派遣其高级管理团队前往南非，这是两次访问中的第一次，目的是收集有关新兴市场的信息，这个项目被称为亚特兰蒂斯。2006年，该小组访问了巴西。就在那时，这项计划完成了与巴西大亨巴蒂斯塔（eikebatista）的合作协议。最近，它与激进的对冲基金janapartners合作，成功地推动了媒体集团McGraw-Hill Cos的发展。重组。唯一一个类似的养老金计划是艾伯塔省投资管理有限公司由Leo de Bever经营, an émigré from Ontario Teachers who is trying to build a direct model in Edmonton (see sidebar, right).

“安大略省教师在股东价值创造的承诺和创业和商业思想的承诺，”Jana Pordener Barry Rosenstein说。“这就是我们在麦克风山运动中成为一个很棒的合作伙伴。”

Public pension funds, which control $3 trillion of assets in the U.S. alone, have been playing a more active role in capital markets, and that role is set to expand exponentially in the coming years. Direct investing is real-world economics. When a pension fund hires a firm like Blackstone Group, it typically pays a 2 percent management fee plus 20 percent of any profits. Public pension funds have the scale to hire talent and can save on the huge costs associated with investing through an intermediary. With the prospect of skimpy returns and interest rates at historic lows, funds need all the help they can get to minimize the amount taxpayers will have to shoulder to make up for any shortfalls. But it’s not just about the fees; it’s also about control. By investing directly, TPC head Rowe gets calls from banks and CEOs about every potential deal in Canada.

权力正在转向投资者，而不仅仅是因为加拿大模型的诱惑。公共养老基金是displacing Wall Streetas the new power brokers simply because they have the capital: the ability to fund new businesses, bridges and corporate expansion. In an effort to save the world from another financial crisis, regulators have forced banks to increase capital, reduce leverage and risk exposure, and — as former Citigroup head Sanford Weill now proposes — possibly even prepare to break up. Pension funds and other asset owners are eagerly jumping into the void. Plan sponsors are going directly to organizations that need capital and making deals. Wall Street will have to adapt to the newfound power of asset owners — not easy when profits from deal making, bond trading and IPOs are already under pressure.

Public funds are rightly salivating over Ontario Teachers’ returns and independent approach. Exceptional investing can help mitigate the pension crisis. Since inception Ontario Teachers has added C$53 billion to the plan’s size through its active management. “People ask what that means to them,” says CIO Petroff, explaining that pensioners often believe their contributions are funding their retirement incomes. “But 75 percent of the fund is made up of investments. Only 25 percent is from contributions.”

这并不是说政府和工会可以简单地投资他们的问题。安大略省教师本身仍然有96亿美元的短缺。但是，通过提供巨大的投资回报，Leech已经获得了与他的受益人的信誉，并认为变化与其他计划相比表。事实上，该计划使用折扣率，即确定未来负债的价值，这是世界上最低的负债。在5.40％的百分比，这一比率使安大略教师的承诺未来出现比其他人更繁重，防止该计划向未来踢出任何问题。它还有助于政府和联盟对此是平等的伙伴。例如，去年，到2014年，教师同意将其捐款提高1.1％，并在2009年退休的养老金领取者将在未来三年内收到略微较小的生活成本增加。

The Canadian model won’t work for everyone. Funds need to be large enough to throw their weight around the investing world, investment professionals have to be compensated in line with what they would make in the private sector— even if that generates some combative headlines in the local press — and trustees, the media, unions and the public need to understand that there will be good years and bad ones. What’s more, Ontario Teachers developed its model over 20 years and has benefited from being an early investor in asset classes that others are now chasing. “It’s a long-term journey,” says Uzumeri, the former head of TPC who left to co-found private equity fund Searchlight Capital Partners, which operates out of London, New York and Toronto. “You need the right governance, the delegation of authority to the investment managers, the tolerance for risk and the right compensation. Without that, the four-legged stool tips over.”

Some public pension funds in the U.S. have done direct investments, but they have been the exception, not the rule.加州公务员退休制度and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System both do direct investing in areas such as real estate, private equity co-investments and, more recently, infrastructure. These direct investments are cyclical, however. During bull markets, when all investment values are rising, boards will endorse these approaches. During stressed markets, such as 2008, trustees often have retrenched, reasoning that specialized money managers are a better bet. Sometimes it just comes down to paychecks.

摩根大通资产管理公司（J.P.Morgan Asset Management）基础设施投资首席执行官、加拿大养老金计划投资委员会（Canada Pension Plan Investment Board）前私人市场主管马克韦斯多夫（Mark Weisdorf）表示：“如果你不能提供薪酬来吸引和留住有经验的人，那么竞争就非常困难。”。

THE DIRECT-INVESTING MODEL ISN'T NEW. ENDOWMENTS and foundations, particularly in the U.S., have been among the most sophisticated investors, setting up independent asset management companies and investing early in private equity, real estate, infrastructure and hedge funds. In 1985, Yale University hired David Swensen, a former Ph.D. student of Nobel Prize–winning Yale economist James Tobin, to take over its endowment. Swensen quickly identified hedge funds and private equity as opportunities and moved the portfolio into them. By the 1990s one fifth of the portfolio was in hedge funds.

Then came Harvard University. Jack Meyer, hired to manage the endowment in 1990, built a similar portfolio during his years as CEO of Harvard Management Co. before leaving in 2005 to start a hedge fund. Swensen and Meyer did things differently, however: Swensen used the best outside managers, while Harvard at one time ran as much as 85 percent of its assets in-house, prompting criticism from professors and others about the risk the university was taking and the outsize paychecks being handed to in-house investment staffers. Great returns couldn’t overcome the negative spotlight, and Harvard partly retrenched.

公共养老基金长期存在于政府领域，受制于政治、变幻莫测的国家财政和工会议程。拉里·卡里（Larry Cary）是交通工人工会Local 100的代表律师，曾任NYCERS的受托人，他建议不要采用加拿大的模式，称此举将把资产移交给华尔街类型公司，后者在金融危机后并不那么受欢迎。有观点认为，纽约市已经向中介机构支付了4亿美元的费用，而内部管理投资可能会将其中一部分费用从华尔街转移回该基金，卡里对此毫无头绪。大多数养老金计划都需要这种帮助。根据波士顿学院退休研究中心的数据，美国公共养老基金有24%的资金不足。这些钱最终必须来自某个地方。如果纳税人不能弥补缺口，员工将不得不增加投入，否则投资将产生更好的回报。

在业务25年后，Leech在2001年加入了安大略省教师作为私募股权和基础设施的负责人。他是加拿大首批公共商家银行之一的Unicorp Canada Corp.和Union Energy之一首席执行官，然后是北美最大的能源和管道公司之一。他在20世纪90年代领导了两家初创公司。Leech已准备退休，但克劳里奥·莱富约，安大略省教师的第一首席执行官和罗伯特贝尔特拉姆，它的第一个CIO，呼吁他有机会扩大基金的仍然新生的私人投资平台。他们希望他在并购和商业建设中的经验。Leech将集团从八到50人队长，从1.75亿美元到200亿美元的资产。

Ontario Teachers launched its Atlantis program in 2004. It wanted to expand into emerging markets, but it also wanted to do its own research. In 2006 the investment management team went to Brazil and met as many people as possible. Ontario Teachers partnered with Batista and provided money for several of his public ventures, including a C$1.1 billion stake in oil company OGX Petróleo e Gas Participações. The plan also took a position in what public equity head Kozun calls the Goldman Sachs of Brazil: BTG Pactual.

Leech于2007年成为金融危机前一年的安大略省教师首席执行官。甚至安大略教师甚至不能逃避狂欢节，在2008年失去18％，基金最糟糕的一年。但其他公共养老金计划远远超过卡伯勒，包括炮弹26％。安大略省教师的直接投资有助于减轻损害。TPC损失了13％，只有一半的损失的一半消退公司。2008年底，Bertram退休为CIO，佩特夫于2009年1月1日成功了他。该年剥离和他的团队向未来的蓝图起草了一个叫做战略2020。“创新是活着的，在这里，”水蛭说。“曾经是我们可以创新的事情，并且在任何人都会抓住之前需要六年时间。现在它更短，所以我们不谈论它。“

水蛭说，直接而不是通过资金意味着私人资本投资组合每年赚取额外亿美元。“这足以支付25,000份养老金，”他补充道。2010年，基础设施组合赢得了13％ - 超过了行业基准，超过了行业基准，增长了4％ - 由于安大略教师的直接投资方法。

The plan has unique access to investments because of its reputation and capabilities. In November 2010 it partnered with Canada’s Omers Worldwide pension plan to buy the U.K.’s High Speed 1 railway, which runs from London to Paris and Brussels. The U.K. government in part chose the two Canadian pension plans because it wanted to close the deal quickly. They did so in 18 days. “And that was a £2 billion [$3.2 billion] deal. My home took three months to close, and we’re closing high-speed rail in under a month,” quips Petroff.

The infrastructure portfolio has matured, and Dowd is now working on building a team that is responsible for managing the assets in addition to accumulating them. He says that since 2008 the team has looked only at private infrastructure; public infrastructure companies didn’t fare well during the crisis. “Northumbrian Water [one of the plan’s holdings during the crisis] was a fantastic fundamental asset, but there was too much volatility for a pension fund,” Dowd explains.

两年前，安大略省教师推出了一项长期股权投资组合，投资私人和公共公司，并寻求其最少十年的公司。这似乎可能是错误的教条，如太平洋投资管理公司的威廉投资管理公司的威廉·粗略市场公开宣称股票和其他人的死亡表示，购买和持有的概念已经死亡。但是，安大略教师通过不同的方式伪造了20多年以上。2010年，它购买了Camelot Group，这是一个全球彩票运营商，该批量持有独家许可​​证，用于长期股权组合。2011年7月，安大略省教师还为其长期股权组合购买了加拿大最大的停车场公司皇家停车场。由于养老金计划将保持财产，只要它产生了良好的回报，盗窃的首席执行官就在前十年中被买了并售出了三次，所以终于最终能够策略停车业务。

Ontario Teachers wants to build its brand in Europe, especially in private equity. Jo Taylor, who joined the plan in January and is a 25-year veteran of private equity, including a stint running a business line for 3i Group, the U.K.’s biggest private equity shop, says: “In Europe there’s more familiarity with us as a fund investor than as an investor in companies. We’re going to be investing often enough that they see us as committed, and we’ll invest in brands and management teams that will get us recognition.”

安大略省教师最近与Jana推动McGraw-Hill到重组值得关注养老金计划的未来的线索。虽然麦格劳山迅速表示，它将实施大多数安大略省教师和Jana的建议，但此举提出了如何公众战斗计划愿意工资的问题。水蛭已经反复强调，未来的股权回报将是微薄的，私募股权和基础设施等替代方案不会提供它们曾经做过的盛宴。活动家投资是另一种实现郊外回报的方法。它并不总是很漂亮，但它可以有效。安大略省教师的模式确保养老金计划可以将方法和策略转移，因为市场变化。

该计划最大的挑战之一是，要领先于所有希望复制其模式的人，即使利奇同时也是一个直接投资好处的传道者。安大略省的教师很早就对基础设施感兴趣，但现在模仿者抬高了价格。”我们想去别人不在的地方，”利奇说。

与计划的首席执行官有关CopyCats的担忧一样，他们将难以努力，至少在美国，养老金受到埃里达规则的管辖，规定计划可以且不能做出以履行其信托义务。加拿大养老金计划由“谨慎人”规则运作，该规则落实了最佳实践，并提供了更多的余地和判断。

但像NYCERS这样计有30万市政雇员的计划，可能别无选择，只能开发一种新的投资模式。纽约市每年为养老金支出贡献80亿美元，约占总预算的10%，高于10年前的15亿美元，即3%。施洛斯是纽约市整个退休体系的首席信息官，他说，每个在退休基金中有股份的人都必须同意，以最低的成本获得最佳回报应该是该计划的使命。”“不要责怪政府雇员，”他说去解决治理问题，成立一家资产管理公司，做出独立的、非政治性的投资决策，并发挥作用。”

利奇打算在2013年年底退休。虽然他的继任者还没有被提名，但安大略省教师已经建立了一个将在他任期内持续的结构和组织：一个专业的、独立的资产管理公司，可以吸引世界上最优秀和最聪明的投资者。政府在对退休人员的债务重压下屈服；他们需要能够找到下一家微软公司或谷歌的投资者来拯救养老金体系。枫叶队是一个糟糕的曲棍球队，实际上是一个很好的投资。养老基金不是这样的。他们的投资需要一个成功的团队来管理。

“You can’t do it with B players,” says Leech. • •