CPP Investments Tremors on Chinese Consumer Equities
Posted on 03/02/2021
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, operating as CPP Investments, reversed course on some large holdings of Chinese listed equities in the consumer sector at the end of 2020, according to filing data. Like other Western asset owners, CPP Investments remains concerned about U.S. policy on Chinese equities. CPP Investments is mired into a large position in Ant Group (formerly Ant Financial), which scrapped its initial public offering (IPO).
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government has accused Alibaba Group of antitrust violations and monopolizing the financial market via Ant Group. At the end of 2020, CPP Investments sold off 4,990,325 shares in Alibaba Group Holdings Limited, selling an estimated US$ 1.161398 billion position. The Canadian pension investor held a remaining stack of 10,929,207 shares in Alibaba. Alibaba Group’s investments in tech startups have slowed to a crawl in the last few months as its affiliate Ant Group was impacted by the postponement of its IPO.
CPP Investments also dropped -2,492,123 shares of JD.com, Inc., an approximate US$ 219.058 million position.
On another note, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission is looking at measures of possibly managing capital inflows to prevent exuberance in the Chinese equity markets.
