Canada’s second biggest public pension fund, Caisse de depot, held a 7.8 per cent stake in Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd at the end of last year, according to its annual report, making it the largest independent shareholder of the pipeline company at the centre of a contentious expansion project.
Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, which discloses its shareholdings in Canadian companies once a year, told Reuters it acquired the stake in the period following Kinder Morgan Canada’s initial public offering last May and before it announced plans to reduce its carbon footprint by 25 per cent per dollar invested last October.
The company has threatened to pull out of the project unless all hurdles are cleared by May 31. In a post earnings call on Wednesday, Kinder Morgan said recent events confirmed an investment in the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion may be “untenable.”
It added that Ottawa’s pledge of financial support did not resolve political risk related to British Columbia’s opposition.
The project, which has the support of Canada’s federal government, is opposed by the province of British Columbia.
Caisse spokesman Maxime Chagnon declined to say what the fund’s current shareholding in Kinder Morgan is, or whether it planned to keep a stake in light of its carbon footprint commitment.
“The Kinder Morgan investment was before we adopted our new strategy regarding climate change,” he told Reuters. “We’re looking at the portfolio and all of our assets on an overall basis to see how we can reach our objective.”
(Reuters)
