With only a few weeks left in a year impacted by trade wars, equity concentration risk and the increased appeal of artificial intelligence opportunities, defined benefit plan sponsors, money managers and other investment professionals gathered at the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria, B.C. for the Canadian Investment Review’s 2025 Investment Innovation Conference. From Nov. 19-21, […]
Fading developed markets bilateral aid and U.S. tariff policy is pushing emerging markets debt as an attractive alternative for growing countries, according to Yvette Babb, portfolio manager at William Blair. “Debt levels in emerging markets are, in fact, lower than their advanced country counterparts. . . . Default rates are low, but also recovery rates, […]
A quantitative investment process could begin competing with the best fixed income and fundamental traditional credit asset managers in the near future, according to Bernd Wuebben, director of systematic investing and quantitative research at AllianceBernstein. “In the context of quant processes, systematic processes, there’s nothing passive about this,” he said during a session at the […]
CPP Investments’ chief executive officer has described the organization as a supertanker, referring to scale — a portfolio approaching $800 billion — and the inability to pivot quickly due to its investments across illiquid assets. “We need to be cognizant of that,” said Derek Walker, the organization’s managing director and head of applied research and […]
Over the last 80 years, the TTC Pension Plan has grown from a contribution of $250,000 and a small team within the Toronto Transit Commission to a Maple Middle pension fund with close to $10 billion and a team of 42 people serving 28,000 members. “We’ve built a model where we’ve tried to learn from […]
Danish pension fund AkademikerPension is divesting nearly US$100 million in U.S. treasuries, citing weak U.S. government finances. In a press release, Anders Schelde, the organization’s investment director, clarified the decision wasn’t made in response to recent U.S. threats to annex Greenland, a Danish territory. “It is not directly related to the ongoing division between the […]
The Pension Investment Association of Canada will monitor the ongoing progress of several policies related to environmental and sustainability solutions. Last year’s federal budget indicated greenwashing provisions would be coming to the Competition Act at a time when the pension association has advocated for clear and flexible environmental, social and governance reporting guidelines, which would […]
After an eventful 2025, there are several developments and trends affecting Canadian defined benefit pension plan sponsors in 2026. Focus on investment strategy Major equity markets performed well in 2025, which was a key driver for another year of improved funded positions for many DB pension plans. Although most pension plans are well funded today, […]
The median solvency ratio among Canadian defined benefit pension plans was 132 per cent as of Dec. 31, 2025, an increase of seven per cent during the year, including three per cent in the final quarter, according to a new report by Mercer Canada. The report, which analyzed more than 470 plan sponsors, found Canadian […]
The funded status of a typical Canadian defined benefit pension plan increased on a solvency basis but decreased on an accounting basis during the month of November, according to a new report by Telus Health. The monthly pension index revealed the typical DB plan grew slightly from 107.3 per cent in October to 107.4 per […]