In May 2015 the parent company Bombardier Inc. announced that it intended to split or spin-off Bombardier Transportation as a separate publicly traded company, while retaining control as the majority owner. Lutz Bertling, president and CEO of Bombardier Transportation stated that a primary motivation for the sell off was to increase the company's financial flexibility, for potential acquisitions or consolidations, allowing the company to better compete with an anticipated Chinese presence in the European market. An IPO was planned for late 2015. In late 2015 the public investor Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) acquired a US$1.5 billion stake in Bombardier Transportation in the form of a bond/equity hybrid, with the shares returned to CDPQ dependent on the financial performance of the company. The investment initially representing a 30% stake - a valuation of $5 billion. The sale was required in part to continue the financing of the parent company's CSeries jet, a major cause of a $4.6billion loss for the parent company in 2015.