Pension managers’ pooled funds delivered a 3.4 per cent median return before management fees during the second quarter of 2025, according to a new report by Telus Health.
Diversified pooled fund managers navigated a volatile economic context in the quarter to deliver the reported positive gains. Indeed, the median return was slightly higher than the benchmark portfolio (0.1 per cent).
Read: Median Canadian pension plan returns 0.6% in Q2 2025: report
Public equity markets endured global trade uncertainty from the impact by tariff policy from the U.S., led by the S&P/TSX composite index (8.5 per cent) and followed by the MSCI world index (5.7 per cent), the S&P 500 equity index (5.3 per cent) and the emerging markets index (6.2 per cent).
During the quarter, Canadian bond investments returned, on average ,negative 0.43 per cent, lowering the year-to-date return to 1.68 per cent.
“We estimate that the average solvency ratio of a typical pension plan increased by about 6.1 per cent over this period, which can partly be attributed to the strong performance of most asset classes,” said Jean Bergeron, partner in Telus Health’s investment consulting team, in a press release. “Since the beginning of the year, the average solvency ratio has increased by about 3.7 per cent.”
Read: FSRA finds Ontario DB plans’ average solvency ratio increasing to 122% in Q2 2025