OMERS Private Equity director Makram Atiyah departs

Makram Atiyah, a director of OMERS Private Equity, left the firm this month, sources told Buyouts.

The reasons for Atiyah’s departure, and details about his future plans, are not known, the sources said. It appears he has not yet been replaced.

Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System, a C$105 billion ($84 billion) pension fund, declined to comment.

Atiyah, who joined the PE group in 2019, was part of a six-person operations and strategy team. Based in London, he worked with managers of portfolio companies to help them generate value over an investment’s lifetime. His particular focus was technology, digital and data initiatives. He also worked with the investment team to identify new deal opportunities.

The pre-OMERS career of Atiyah was in strategy, operations execution and business improvement roles – with a strong emphasis on tech.

Atiyah was Hotels.com’s senior director of global content and, before then, Expedia’s director of business planning and implementation, according to his LinkedIn profile. His earliest executive role was leading strategic and operations projects in the communications, media and technology practice of A.T. Kearney.

Atiyah’s departure is the second this year from OMERS’ PE group. Tim Patterson, an 11-year veteran of the firm and head of its healthcare team, left in January, Buyouts reported.

OMERS’ PE group, which as of December 31 oversaw net assets of C$14.8 billion, last year realized one of its worst returns since the financial crisis. Due to the fallout of covid-19, the portfolio generated a negative net return of 8.4 percent against a benchmark of 9 percent.

The group’s direct buyout platform, which targets deal flow in business services, healthcare, industrials and software, has historically done well, Buyouts previously reported. Over the past decade, it earned net performance of 14 percent to 18 percent.

OMERS last November signaled a return to platform investments, perhaps in expectation of post-pandemic opportunities. It announced the acquisition of TurnPoint Services, a provider of electrical, HVAC and plumbing services, from Trivest Partners.