VENTURE-UPDATE 1-Canada's OMERS to boost funds for new ventures

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By Pav Jordan

CALGARY May 28 (Reuters) - OMERS Administration Corp, one of Canada's biggest pension funds, aims to boost its participation in the nation's flagging venture capital industry, hoping to find opportunities in helping startup companies grow.

OMERS Chief Executive Michael Nobrega told Reuters in an exclusive interview the pension fund manager could allocate as much as 3 percent of its considerable investment capital to new ventures as early as the end of the Canadian summer.

"By the end of the summer perhaps -- it will be done this year," Nobrega said ahead of the annual Canada Venture Capital and Private Equity Association conference, held this week in Calgary. "We have studied this thing backwards and forwards."

A fund managing about C$44 billion in net investment assets, OMERS could give the Canadian venture capital industry a considerable boost. OMERS represents about 390,000 retired and working municipal employees in the province of Ontario.

Canada's venture capital industry is in danger of extinction, and with it the technology development industry that gave birth to such inventions as the BlackBerry smartphone, which hooked a generation of executives on secure wireless email.

For Nobrega, a strong supporter of innovation and venture capital, the funding model for new inventions in Canada is broken.

He said OMERS, or the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, would be willing to step in and help new companies develop into revenue-generating, publicly listed entities. He said the approach would not be to exclude other players, but work together with them locally and globally to provide new companies with the expertise and funding to grow.

"We'd probably allocate 2 or 3 percent of our funds to it," said Nobrega, who will address some 500 investors gathered at the CVCA conference in Calgary on Thursday.

Investors from the managers of small family fortunes to chief executives managing billions of dollars at top pension funds are attending the gathering. (Reporting by Pav Jordan; Editing by Frank McGurty)