Crédit Agricole, Ardian, and 15 more met Canadian fund managers at the embassy breakfast
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec sent officials to a breakfast meeting at the Canadian embassy in central Paris on Friday, November 6, where Canadian fund managers pitched French institutional investors on deploying capital in Canada.
The Globe and Mail reported that the session was expected to draw representatives of 17 primarily French investing giants, including Crédit Agricole, WendelGroup, Société Générale Assurances and Ardian, as well as the European Investment Fund.
Also slated to attend, according to the Globe, were the Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Canada, alongside leaders from Teralys Capital, Inovia Capital, True North Fund and Sagard, the alternative asset manager affiliated with Power Corp. of Canada and led by Power senior vice-president Paul Desmarais III.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) chief executive officer Benjamin Bergen said the Prime Minister’s investment summit aimed to attract more capital into Canada and build it here at home.
Bergen said the association is doing exactly that as a next step, moving the ambition into practice.
The CVCA co-hosted the meeting with Canada’s ambassador to France, Nathalie Drouin, who told the Globe in an e-mailed statement that it “continues to build on that commitment, bringing together leading Canadian venture capital and private equity firms with institutional investors to explore new avenues for investment, co-investment and long-term collaboration between Canada and Europe.”
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced the $1.75bn Venture and Growth Capital Plan in Toronto on October 22, according to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.
Its Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative provides $1bn on a cash basis starting in 2026-27, and the funds-of-funds call for expressions of interest covering $700m of that is open until noon Pacific time on January 21, 2027.
The department’s backgrounder says the government is promoting Canadian venture capital funds to domestic and global investors, including pension funds and other institutional investors, and puts expected private-sector leverage on the $1bn at a minimum of $2.4bn.
Recipient funds-of-funds must raise $3 from private investors for every $1 from Ottawa, the Globe reported, and European investors took part in earlier versions of the program.
The first Canada Investment Summit, co-hosted by the federal government with CPP Investments and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, drew investors from nearly 30 countries managing more than $100tn in assets, the Prime Minister’s Office said on September 15.
Canada’s largest pension funds, insurers and institutional investors committed nearly $100bn in new capital to Canadian assets around the event, part of nearly $500bn in new investment commitments recorded by the PMO.
Bergen told the Globe that similar gatherings are planned worldwide over the next year, starting with a meeting scheduled for next month in Abu Dhabi, and that the Paris plan grew out of collaboration with Canada’s Trade Commissioner Service, which has stepped up efforts “to focus more on capital formation” since Carney came to power last year.
Jacques Bernier, managing partner with Montreal-based fund manager Teralys, said the event would let him “meet more qualified people in less time” than other meetings he has held to court European investors, adding that Ottawa’s involvement “gets us to the next level of discussion and shows that they’re serious to open the relationships.”
