“It has exceptional unlevered rates of return, the science behind it is solid and it is deeply entrenched in a stable regulatory environment. We invested in mitigation banking specifically because nobody else knew what it was. We love that. By definition, if people aren’t aware of or are afraid of something, there is more pricing inefficiency to take advantage of in that market.”
– Mark Canavan, March 16, 2016
On behalf of our EIP Team, please join us in remembering one of our longest partners and greatest advocates, Mark Canavan, longtime Head of Real Assets at the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board, who passed away on February 19 following a long battle with cancer treatment-related ailments.
Mark pioneered institutional investing in mitigation banking with an early commitment in our first institutional fund, EIP II, in 2011 and anchored each of our subsequent funds thereafter. He served as a trusted partner and advisor to us on each of our Funds’ Investor Advisory Committees. Mark was a brilliant investor with a passion for differentiated real assets investments and possessed a steadfast dedication to delivering returns for the educators of the state of New Mexico that he served for over 16 years.
We are deeply grateful for Mark’s partnership and enduring support over the years and we will forever remember him as a devoted father and friend.
In Mark’s honor, EIP has made a donation to the Friends of the Sandia Mountains, a (501)(c)(3) non-profit organization of local volunteers dedicated to working in partnership with the United States Forest Service to maintain, protect and restore the natural, cultural and scenic resources of forest lands within the Sandia Ranger District of the Cibola National Forest and adjacent lands. For more information: https://friendsofthesandias.org/.
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In Memoriam: Mark Canavan
This article was originally published on Agri Investor.
Mark Canavan died earlier this month after a career that included a 16-year stint managing the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board’s active natural resources portfolio.
Mark Canavan was a great talker.
Great talkers serve an important function in the interconnected worlds of investment, financial conferences and trade journalism. They animate the narratives that guide and motivate investors. They help build coalitions required in any investment or market. They leaven education with entertainment and add color to an endeavor that can tend toward a black and white view.
Canavan spent more than 16 years managing real asset investments at the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board before leaving that position in August and dying earlier this month after a period of illness. He was more than a mere talker. In addition to being a devoted father and friend, Canavan was an intellectually curious fiduciary proud to have played a forward-looking role in expanding institutional capital’s place within natural assets that provided strong financial returns and widespread environmental benefits.
NMERB chief investment officer Bob Jacksha told Agri Investor Canavan was the first person he hired upon assuming his position at the pension in 2007. The role, he said, began with a focus on real estate that expanded to include a broader natural resources portfolio housing commitments to agriculture and timber managers, Water Asset Management’s real asset funds and a mitigation banking strategy managed by Ecosystem Investment Partners, among others.
“We were, if not the first public fund in a mitigation banking fund, we were one of the first. Same with water. I would say that on infrastructure as well. Mark led all of that effort,” Jacksha said. “Quite frankly, Mark developed those programs.”
EIP managing partner Nick Dilks told Agri Investor that when he first met Canavan around 2010, his firm had already met with about 200 investors, none of which were familiar with mitigation banking. By contrast, he said, Mark was proud to announce upon their first meeting that not only did he already have an allocation to mitigation, but he had already placed investments that included mitigation within agriculture and timber strategies.
“We thought that nobody even in the operational world had heard of this stuff, and here’s a pension fund manager that had already allocated money to it. It was classic Mark Canavan,” said Dilks. “He had been out there, looking at opportunities, reading, over-turning rocks and on his own, effectively, had discovered this business sector that, prior to his investment, really hadn’t had any institutional capital in it. He decided and convinced his colleagues it was an investible thing, they just had to go find a manager.”
Canavan developed close relationships with many of his managers and maintained regular contact with all of them, Jacksha said. Paul Young, chief executive of Conservation Resources, told Agri Investor the diligence Canavan conducted before committing to his firm’s timber strategy was as thorough as any he has encountered.
“He pulled no punches when he was at meetings with us,” he added. “In today’s world, people generally aren’t like that anymore. They always have some angle they are trying to hit. He just never did. He was straight-forward; hard-hitting when he needed to be, funny when he wanted to be.”
Mark reminded me of Bill Murray. Over the years from 2017, our acquaintance included more than one call that began with a 15-minute check-in, before stretching into well more than an hour to make room for views on politics, finance, policy, the environment and life.
I inherited Mark as a source and did my best to keep him. Alas, part of his being a great talker was a willingness to debate that did have its limits. That is worth mentioning only to the extent that it reveals that the passion, vigor and playfulness well known to those close to him, were evident even in the less consequential aspects of his work and life.
Mark Canavan will be missed.