Leo de Bever talks about the career lessons that have helped to shape AIMCo’s path.
How has your work as an economist helped you in pension investing?
Economics is a bit like law: it provides a lot of touch points, allowing you to frame issues in a way that is probably more holistic than if you started out just looking at stocks and bonds. You see the overall things that are important. If we want to hold our own in a global setting, and we really believe that we’re living in a knowledge economy, then our behaviour had better be designed to strengthen the human capital in the economy, as well as the physical capital.
You grew up in the Netherlands, attended university in the U.S. and worked in Australia. How has that shaped your perspective?
I’ve lived in a lot of places, and I find that helps you to be less myopic in how you evaluate situations. If you look around the world and see how situations are solved or not solved, it gives you some insights that you can apply to your local decision-making processes.
How does pension investing in Australia compare with Canada?
Australia is much more risk-averse. My tenure at Victorian Funds Management Corp. was an attempt to change that. I’m not sure how successful that was because, ultimately, you have to be willing to take some medium-term risk to take a longer-term investment horizon. It might have been easier to start that Australian adventure in the mid-’90s—to live through some good years and to see how that model can work. I didn’t have that advantage. I would say that risk aversion is a big part of the culture. It’s much more of a DC culture, and it’s very short term. It tends to mirror the mutual fund culture in North America, where the year after an asset class does well, everybody wants in, and if it did poorly, they want out—which, as we all know, is probably not the best way to run your pension plan.
Neil Faba is associate editor of Benefits Canada. neil.faba@rci.rogers.com
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