In 2019, International Women’s Day was a significant event at the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology pension plan because it prompted the launch of many new initiatives to further diversity and inclusion at the organization. It also marked the first time the CAAT plan celebrated international women’s day, exploring how it could improve its […]
At the time of my last column in May, many pension plan sponsors were catching their breath after watching funding levels take a roller coaster ride. After a steep drop earlier in the year, funding levels were slowly recovering. However, market uncertainty remained and it wasn’t clear what was coming next. Thankfully the last few […]
The coronavirus pandemic is fundamentally changing the future of work and, very likely, the nature of employer-sponsored benefits and pension plans. Looking to the end of the crisis, Canadian consultants see an array of major changes on the horizon, from more flexible benefits plans and mental-health care to an outsourcing of pension administration and the […]
Over the last several years, a small group of faculty members at the University of British Columbia has been calling on its pension plan’s board of trustees to consider divesting from fossil fuels. As support for divestment grew, the board of the UBC faculty pension plan, which is defined contribution, agreed to assess whether there […]
While factor behaviour tends to be consistent in market crashes and corrections, individual factor performance varies over the medium term. As such, institutional investors should maintain diversified exposure across key equity factors including value, quality, momentum, size and low volatility, according to a new paper by Mercer. The paper explored the past three financial crises: […]
Four in five (80 per cent) Canadian employers believe they have the appropriate programs and practices in place to support employees’ mental, physical, emotional and financial well-being as they return to the workplace and settle into a new normal, according to a new survey by Mercer Canada. The survey, which examined Canadian organizations’ preparedness for returning to […]
Several prominent players in Canada’s pensions and benefits industries have signed onto the BlackNorth Initiative, pledging to take specific actions within their organizations to tackle anti-Black racism. “The persistent inequities across our country underscore our urgent, national need to address and alleviate racial, ethnic and other tensions and to promote the elimination of anti-Black systemic […]
With a rough 2020 year-to-date, value investing’s recent poor performance follows over a decade of underperformance, leaving many to ask if it’s still relevant, according to a new white paper by Mercer. Between 1927 and 2008, the average annual value premium was 5.5 per cent, but since then results have been lacklustre. In the 2010s, […]
In the second quarter of 2020, the funded positions of defined benefit plans recovered almost half of the losses incurred during the coronavirus crash of the first quarter, according to Mercer’s pension health index. The index, which represents the solvency ratio of a hypothetical DB pension plan, increased to 101 per cent at the end […]
Before physical distancing, pension plan sponsors typically held in-person meetings and site visits when allocating to new investment managers. “I like to look people in the eye when they’re telling me what they’re going to do,” says Blair Richards, chief executive officer of the Halifax Port ILA/HEA Pension Plan. “It’s very old school and it’s […]