Institutional investors usually purchase such instruments in order to diversify their assets and generate short-term gains.
This caused trouble for financial institutions that had relied on sales of ABCP to obtain funds for use in longer-term investments (see maturity mismatch).
In the summer of 2007, Henri-Paul Rousseau, then President and CEO of CDPQ had envisioned and negotiated a unique Canadian solution that consisted in converting the ABCP into long-term bonds[8][9] with the major players signing the Accord de Montréal.
[5] In the fall of 2008, Marc Carney's negotiation skills[11][12] ensured the completion of what would be considered the largest restructuring in Canadian history.
In 2008, RBC Dexia positioned the Caisse in the first quartile for returns amongst the large pension funds.