Pension plans are the topic du jour, even outside of HR circles. Funding challenges, retirement income adequacy, intergenerational equity and financial stability are only a few of the issues under discussion and in the media. But all talk and little action may be sounding the death knell for these programs. Unless pension plans can evolve relatively quickly to meet changing needs and circumstances, they face extinction.
Thanks to steady growth in the global stock market, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) closed the 2012/13 fiscal year with an investment return of 13.8%. But long-term funding remains a challenge for CalSTRS, the largest teachers pension fund and second largest public pension fund in the United States.
The 2008 economic crisis and its lasting aftermath have significantly influenced the dynamics of collective bargaining in both the public and private sectors in Canada. As a result, employers are taking a hard look at the long-term sustainability of their DB pension plans and searching for alternatives to the status quo.
Last week, Mark Carney spoke about the state of the global economy in Halifax for the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS). He touched on the situation in Europe, and focused on how an open, resilient financial system can support sustained global growth. He also addressed the need to pay down debt and the too-big-to-fail […]
Consolidation, benefits cuts part of budget.
While plan sponsors across the country are retreating from DB arrangements that are costly to the bottom line in good times—and even more so in economic downturns such as those we’ve faced over the past decade—more and more are looking to DC as an alternative retirement savings option for their employees. According to the 2011 […]
In Herman Hesse’s epic novel Siddhartha, the eponymous protagonist has a revelation one day regarding the river he has grown up beside: “…today he saw one of the river’s secrets, one that gripped his soul. He saw that the water continually flowed and flowed and yet it was always there; it was always the same […]
On the eve of the federal-provincial finance ministers meeting in Whitehorse, a curious disconnect is emerging in Canada. A chorus of prominent voices has been lamenting the dismal condition of Canada’s “ailing” pension system and exhorting our politicians to act. The Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) published a paper in October 2009 that starts out, […]
It’s been another tumultuous year for the capital accumulation plan (CAP) industry: pending harmonized sales tax, government reform on pensions and, lest we forget, market volatility. But through it all, the CAP industry has held up, and for that, it deserves a hats off. “It’s been a great year for the CAP industry because we’ve […]
Leo de Bever, CEO of Alberta Investment Management Corporation, discusses AIMCo’s evolution and the impact of the downturn on the money management industry. As a crown corporation, how is AIMCo different from other managers? We are more in line with Teachers’ or OMERS. The crown corporation structure puts us aside from the government, but we […]