The fund draws on more than 70 indicators built with the Oxford-Man Institute
CPP Investments has stopped trying to predict the next crisis and is instead building its risk framework around being ready for whichever way the world breaks.
The $570bn fund has named four scenarios for the future world order inside a framework it calls the "deglobalisation radar": deglobalisation, re-Americanisation, de-Americanisation and complete fragmentation.
According to Top1000funds.com, more than 70 indicators built with the Oxford-Man Institute feed the radar, which underpins the fund's regime analysis.
Those scenarios shape every top-down and bottom-up decision the fund makes, senior managing director and chief risk officer Priti Singh told the Top1000funds.com Fiduciary Investors Symposium at Harvard University.
The early tariff announcements left her guessing daily on which way things would go, Priti said.
She "quickly realised that you needed a framework to how you tackle this."
The aim is to prepare for outcomes, not predict them, she said.
Preparedness lets the fund manage risk more efficiently when a crisis hits and position for any market dislocation, and liquidity sits at the centre of that work.
The fund ranks "pretty high" on the liquidity spectrum in what Priti called an environment rich with opportunities.
Deciding which opportunity is "the best use of capital at that time" is something a firm can prepare for now, she said.
"You don't have to wait for the crisis."
A resilient risk culture matters as much as the practices, Top1000funds.com reported.
Daleep Singh, vice chair and chief global economist at PGIM, said the coming market will reward organizations that treat humility as a core cultural characteristic.
"It'll reward people who can imagine. [But] it's going to really punish those who are unwilling to learn from history and are going to confidently assert this time is different," Daleep said.
Daleep, a former deputy national security advisor for the National Economic Council under the Biden administration, said the largest opportunity now lies in the potential for "economic security to become an asset class."
He estimated the opportunity set could reach US$10tn across global governments, as almost every major government runs fiscally constrained and leaves long-horizon projects such as supply chain build-out and technology innovation underfunded.
A "valley of death" sits between proven science and commercial scale, Daleep said.
He sees a market failure there that some institution or asset manager will eventually fill. "Every supply chain vulnerability is a commercial opportunity."
