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By Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque London: Robert J. Toole, managing director and founder of Toronto-based commodity firm Creststreet, talked to Opalesque about his forthcoming fund, the Creststreet Alternative Energy Opportunities Fund Inc., which will be launched later this fall.

Creststreet has had a long history in alternative energy, being one of the pioneering developers of renewable energy in Canada. The firm assembled quite a large portfolio of projects and developed 3 wind farms in 2001. In 2006, the Canadian government changed the tax laws with respect to the investment structure that Creststreet was holding (a Canadian income fund) which turned out to be punitive. So Creststreet decided to sell all assets. In the second quarter of this year, the firm completed the sale of all of their renewable assets to some of the largest power utilities of North America. Toole added: “We have learned a lot of the lessons with regards to alternative energy.”

Creststreet’s approach going forward is, rather than have direct ownerships of assets, to take care of the investment portfolio approach and assemble a portfolio of mostly public alternative energy securities built on the long and short basis, and leverage the deep renewable energy experience that the managers have.

“We made the decision about a year ago that we were going to [leave] the direct ownership of assets and move into a portfolio approach to alternative e......................

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