Assets at the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan topped $40 billion in 2011 as the pension fund generated a 12.19% return for the year. HOOPP is also fully funded, an achievement that HOOPP president and CEO, Jim Keohane, says is due to the pension fund’s shift to a liability driven investing strategy in the early 2000s. “HOOPP’s benefits are fully funded. This means that we have sufficient resources to pay every pension owed to the membership – not just now but into the future too,” Keohane said in a press release. “The best returns in 2011 were in long bonds, real return bonds, real estate and private equity. These are all asset classes which are employed heavily in our LDI portfolio. That is why funds employing LDI have achieved better results in 2011,” he added.
HOOPP’s 270,000 members include nurses, medical technicians, food services staff and laundry workers, and other healthcare workers in Ontario.