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Mackenzie Investments Private Market Summit
with Northleaf Capital Partners
London England, May 2025, Personal Notes & Opinions from Michael Banwell in attendance
My first impression at the initial introductory session was the large number of Northleaf people in attendance. From Stuart Waugh, Co-founder and Managing Partner to numerous other Managing Directors including Dushy Sivanithy, Managing Director, Head of Secondaries for CPP Investments. The depth of experience, specific areas of expertise, and knowledge was totally impressive.
Here are my condensed thoughts from attending all ten sessions and to my understanding the following containing unofficial and/or estimated statistics:
Founded in 2002 Northleaf manage approximately $30 billion of assets across three main areas: private equity, infrastructure, and private credit. Toronto head office, 10 global offices, 275 employees, and 300 plus institutional investors. In 2020 Northleaf and Mackenzie entered into a strategic partnership, both companies are part of the Power Financial group of companies with approximately $1.7 trillion of assets under administration.
Since inception (2003) the Northleaf Private Equity portfolio has produced average annual returns in excess of 20%. This is understood by me to represent long-term outperformance of both public markets and global buyout funds with lower volatility.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) has approximately 56% exposure to alternative investments including private equity, infrastructure, private credit and real estate. Northleaf manage assets for CPP and focus on three areas: private equity, private credit, and infrastructure.
The Mackenize and Northleaf partnership delivers institutional private markets investments to individual investors which could represent an excellent strategy for additional diversification with strong return potential.
After attending this conference and interacting with the various Northleaf directors we highly support the Mackenize Northleaf Global Private Equity portfolio for clients deemed suitable (as per their KYC information for investment into this product).