The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan purchased or increased its stake in a number of telecom companies last year, according to its 2007 annual report.
The plan bought 8 million more shares of BCE—which it plans to take private—to hold 50.8 million shares, valued at approximately $2.03 billion at the end of last year. Out of all the publicly traded companies Teachers’ owned at the end of 2007, BCE was the largest holding.
Teachers’ also invested in Deutsche Telekom, holding 46.6 million shares valued at $1.01 billion, making it the third-largest holding. The company was not one of its stock holdings of more than $100 million at the end of 2006.
The plan upped its stake in Manitoba Telecom, buying an additional 1.8 million shares to hold 5.7 million shares valued at $267.7 million.
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While it bought telecom, Teachers’ also sold some of its holdings in oil and gas companies. It held 53.7 million shares of Nexen valued at $1.72 billion—its second largest holding—down from 60.2 million shares (after adjusting for last year’s stock split) at the end of 2006.
The plan reduced its stake in EnCana to 2.2 million shares from 5.7 million shares, cut its holdings in Suncor to 1.2 million shares from 3.6 million, and decreased its stake in Canadian Natural Resources to 1.4 million shares from 3.5 million shares.
The plan also reduced its holdings in financials, cutting its stake in RBC Financial by nearly two-thirds to 3.2 million shares and held 4 million shares of Manulife, down from 10.7 million at the end of 2006.
Earlier this week, Teachers’ announced that it had a $12.7 billion shortfall between the plan’s assets and liabilities.
To read the annual report on Teachers’ website, click here.
To comment on this story, email craig.sebastiano@rci.rogers.com.