Caisse's losses equal that of income trust investors

The Caisse lost $38 billion last year. Roughly equal to the $35 billion of retirement savings lost by income trust investors, and caused solely by Stephen Harper and his
policy lie that income trusts cause tax leakage. Someone should be fired? Ne pensez-vous pas?

Quebec’s Caisse Had C$38 Billion Loss in 2008, La Presse Says
By Frederic Tomesco

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec had a C$38 billion ($30 billion) loss on its investments last year as stocks declined and the fund manager wrote down the value of its asset-backed commercial paper, La Presse reported.

The 26 percent loss was the biggest in the Montreal-based fund manager’s 45-year history, La Presse reported, citing internal Caisse de Depot documents. The figures are preliminary and haven’t been approved by the audit committee, the newspaper said today.

The Caisse, which managed C$155.4 billion at the end of 2007, took a C$4 billion writedown on its C$12.6 billion asset- backed commercial paper holdings, La Presse said. Stock and bond investments lost C$26 billion, while foreign-exchange holdings yielded a loss of C$5 billion, the newspaper said.

Pension funds in Canada dropped by an average of 16 percent last year, according to a January report by Royal Bank of Canada’s RBC Dexia unit. The Caisse is due to report its 2008 results this month.

Caisse de Depot spokesman Maxime Chagnon declined to comment on the La Presse article, when contacted by Bloomberg News.

To contact the reporter on this story: Frederic Tomesco in Montreal tomesco@bloomberg.net.