CIC Drop Toronto for the first time

Shi outside Canada, CIC's current strategy has increasingly shifted to emerging markets, where the first overseas representative of China Investment Corporation (hereinafter "CIC") will drop the Canadian financial Centre, Toronto.　　People familiar with the situation told the first financial daily that CIC's Canadian representative office would be responsible for liaison and co-ordination only and not to carry out specific investment operations, thus making a functional difference from the wholly-owned subsidiary, CIC International (Hong Kong) Limited, which was announced last November. The reporters stressed that the Canadian representative Office would be responsible for coordinating CIC's strategic layout throughout North America.　　But it is still a bit of a surprise for CIC to opt for Toronto instead of choosing the International Financial Centre, New York or London, like other sovereign funds. Some analysts believe that Toronto and New York are a straight distance of about 550 km, can take short flights to and from, so the establishment of a representative office in Toronto can still more easily cover the Wall Street and its representative of the United States market.　　Canada's financial markets, on the other hand, benefit from its natural resource endowments, have less impact in the financial crisis, and increase the proportion of investment in Canada, helping CIC diversify its investment risk and avoid reliance on the single market.　　But more importantly, for sovereign funds, Canada has a friendlier investment climate relative to some of the equally attractive developed countries. Last October, CIC's general manager and chief investment officer, Gao, told Canadian media: "The Canadian government is generally friendlier than most developed countries."　　"Emerson, a former Canadian minister of International Trade and foreign minister, is currently a member of the International Advisory Board of CIC and, during his time as a Canadian government official, has worked to promote China-Canada economic and trade relations and mutual investment." CIC was founded at the end of 2007, and from the start, the sovereign fund insisted on pure financial investment and did not seek control over the subject matter of the investment. But today, with protectionism rife, CIC's appeal does not always gain the understanding of the investing nation.　　Foreign opinion often confuses CIC with other Chinese state-owned enterprises that have acquired overseas acquisitions, and believes there is a concerted effort between them. One example is the foreign media reported last September that CIC was likely to be involved in the takeover of PotashCorp with the Chinese group.　　Gao, in an interview with the Canadian media, explained that some state-owned companies did have contact with CIC, but CIC found it hard to work with them. "It is reasonable for state-owned companies to have control over some resources because they want to guarantee the supply of resources within a reasonable price," Gao said, "but we have the opposite starting point." We hope that the price of resources (which CIC has acquired) will remain high so that we can get a return on investment. "CIC's significant investments in Canada include heavy oil assets in the north of the Vishnu River region in northern Alberta, a joint venture with the Canadian side West Energy Trust, which invested 817 million Canadian dollars with 45% of the joint venture, and CICAgreed through its wholly-owned subsidiary to private placement in the form of investment in the Western company about 435 million Canadian dollars, the company holds about 5% of banks outside the trust unit.　　In addition, CIC has spent 1.5 billion of billions of dollars on private-equity acquisitions of the Canadian firm, which accounts for about 17.2% of the company's outstanding shares. Outside Canada, CIC's current strategy has shifted more and more towards emerging markets. This is partly due to the resistance of developed countries, but the fundamentals may be more important. In Gao's view, capital markets have not fully followed the growth of emerging market economies.