Caledon recruits Ontario Teachers’ senior VP Stephen Dowd

Caledon Capital Management has snapped up Stephen Dowd as it newest partner.

Dowd was formerly a senior vice president at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. Joining the pension fund in 2006, he led its infrastructure and timberlands group from 2007 to 2013. During that period, he helped grow the portfolio’s value from $7 billion to $11 billion. More than 80 percent of portfolio assets reflect direct investments in global infrastructure projects.

Prior to his time at Ontario Teachers, Dowd spent several years in various executive roles in the independent power industry, including a stint at U.S. energy, commodities and services company Enron Corp. He also worked as an investment banker and financial advisor at locations in North America and Europe.

Dowd was hired by Caledon, a Toronto-based advisory and portfolio management firm, to strengthen its infrastructure team.

In an interview with peHUB Canada, Dowd said he hopes to apply what he learned at Ontario Teachers’ to his new role.

“When I joined Ontario Teachers, the pension fund was demonstrating a strong appetite for infrastructure and timberland assets,” he said. “Our efforts focused on portfolio construction and acquiring assets with the goal of creating a truly international private market program capable of generating risk-adjusted returns.”

“Ontario Teachers pioneered a model that others are now trying to emulate,” he added.

Dowd said his new job at Caledon will emphasize the continued growth of its infrastructure practice. To this end, he will collaborate with several other Caledon professionals with backgrounds in Canada’s institutional investor community.

“I think a huge benefit Caledon brings to its clients is a team that has long experience as senior institutional managers. Because of that quality, we understand the needs and aspirations of the small and mid-sized institutional investors we serve.”

Since its founding in 2007 by David Rogers, former head of the PE group at Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), Caledon has recruited a number of high profile institutional managers. Along with Dowd, they include partner Martin Day, previously a managing director at OMERS Private Equity, and vice president Jeff DeBlock, previously with the infrastructure group at Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).

Last month, peHUB Canada reported on Caledon’s growth since 2007. Today, the firm oversees more than $5 billion in assets on behalf of institutional clients, most of them Canadian and U.S. public and corporate pension plans sized between $4 billion and $25 billion.

Additionally, the firm in September reported that it had closed more than $700 million of infrastructure and PE direct investments and fund commitments to date this year.

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