Canadian Pension Funds, the New Buyout Kings, Take On Private Equity

Mark Wiseman, chief executive officer of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, walked into Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s looking for a suit. “I couldn’t afford anything there,” he says. While he still hasn’t bought a suit at Bergdorf’s, this year he did buy the store. Canada Pension, which represents 18 million workers and is the country’s largest pension manager, in October helped lead a C$6.3 billion ($6 billion) buyout of Bergdorf’s owner, Neiman Marcus Group. “Is that where I shop?” he asks. “No, thanks. But there are a lot of people who do. It’s the biggest mistake that you can make in investing: Don’t assume that the rest of the world is like you.”