In its third-quarter disclosures, the pension revealed that its investment in Unity was worth US$725 million as of Sept. 30. Since then, Unity’s stock jumped from US$87.88 to above US$121, meaning that CPPIB’s 8,308,081 shares would now be worth more than US$1 billion.Unity is still a young company, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said. In fact, it didn’t even have a business model for monetization until 2013.
Because Lightspeed launched on the NYSE last quarter, the value of the CDPQ’s investment in the company was revealed in its third-quarter disclosures. The CDPQ disclosed owning more than 24 million shares of Lightspeed and the position was worth US$775.6 million as of Sept. 30. The stock was trading at US$32.02 then and has since risen above US$45 meaning that if the CDPQ did not sell any of its shares, its position is now worth more than US$1.09 billion.
“Lightspeed is kind of interesting because Lightspeed’s one where they showed strong resilience and strong growth through the pandemic but on the flip side, they will also benefit clearly from the economy reopening and the world getting back to normal because of the fact their primary customer base has significant bricks-and-mortar exposure,” he said. “It’s different from other tech stocks.
Ackman and the OTPP have a history of working together. In 2012, Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management L.P. led a push to have the Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. change its board and chief executive and gained the support of the OTPP, another of CP Rail’s large institutional investors. Pershing’s proxy fight was successful — it saw all its nominations for the board pushed through and Hunter Harrison replaced Fred Green as CEO.