(Bloomberg) -- Canada Pension Plan Investment Board promoted Caitlin Gubbels to lead its global private equity group, replacing Suyi Kim, who’s leaving the fund manager after 17 years.
Gubbels — who has worked for CPPIB since 2010 — is its head of private equity fund partnerships, a team that invests in large and middle-market buyout funds and also makes minority direct investments in companies. She’s a former investment banker at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
“Caitlin’s proven ability to build relationships and generate returns across private equity opportunities makes her ideally suited to take on this expanded leadership role,” Chief Executive Officer John Graham said in a statement Wednesday. She’ll take on the new role on Oct. 15.
Kim has been in charge of the pension fund’s private equity division for about three years. The firm said she plans to “take on new global investment leadership opportunities.”
CPPIB, the country’s largest pension manager, earned a 1% return in the fiscal quarter ended June 30. Assets grew to C$646.8 billion ($472 billion).
The private equity team takes stakes in businesses worldwide and, at C$137 billion, its investments make up about 21% of CPPIB’s total net assets. That’s down 12% from C$156 billion at the end of its last fiscal year.
Gubbels’ new role will include oversight of the fund’s private equity team in Asia, which has long been a significant focus. While the pension manager is still investing in China despite geopolitical tensions, it has shifted its emerging-markets strategy in recent months and is prioritizing markets such as India, Graham told Bloomberg in June.
(Updates with additional context starting in second paragraph)
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