Pooled pension fund managers bounced back in the first quarter of 2019, posting a median return before management fees of 8.3 per cent, up from the negative 5.6 per cent return they posted in the final quarter of 2018, according to Morneau Shepell Ltd.’s latest data. However, the firm’s pension performance universe came in 0.4 per […]
Looks aren’t a solid basis on which to form a long-term relationship and neither is the surface-level appearance of a target-date fund. “In a perfect world, we would like our members to have a long-term relationship with a target-date fund we’re offering,” said Zaheed Jiwani, a principal at Eckler Ltd., at Benefits Canada‘s 2019 Benefits […]
With Venezuela in the midst of a political and economic crisis, this is highlighting the need for investors to not only focus on default risk in fixed income, but also recovery risk, says Hamed Faquiryan, vice-president in the fixed income and multi-asset class research team at MSCI Inc. Although there are numerous issues, people who […]
At the start of April, the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index started including Chinese bonds. “Adding China to a benchmark global bond index – with two more global indexes likely to follow suit – will attract many investors to China’s domestic bond market, some for the first time,” said Kenneth Ho, managing director and head of Asia credit strategy […]
Since using a single benchmark portfolio to measure a pension plan’s funding status paints a narrow picture, a new report by PBI Actuaries and Consultants looked at four different portfolio types to see how the equity fall off at the end of the year, among other market events, affected different asset mixes. The liability portfolio kept […]
As Canadian pension plans look globally for fixed income, FTSE Russell has introduced a country classification framework to make the process of managing country inclusion of its flagship fixed income indexes more transparent. Beyond the U.S., Canadian funds are interested globally, says Marina Mets, managing director of fixed income at FTSE Russell. When going global, […]
FTSE Russell has built a series of customizable multi-asset indexes. The FTSE Multi-Asset Composite Index series will focus on measuring cross-asset market performance over a number of regions including the U.S., Europe, China as well as other emerging markets. The series was built in response to demand from clients for methods to measure multi-asset performance with more accuracy […]
FTSE International Ltd. is appointing Paul Bowes in the newly created role of Canadian country head. In the position, Bowes will oversee the Toronto team and report to Waqas Samud, the organization’s chief executive officer, who is also the group director for information services at the London Stock Exchange Group. “I’m excited to have Paul join […]
Canadian defined benefit pension plans’ solvency position rose in the first quarter of 2019, according to two new pension indexes. Representing the solvency ratio of a hypothetical plan, Mercer Canada’s index sat at 106 per cent on March 31, up from 102 per cent at the start of the year. The median solvency ratio of Mercer clients’ pension plans […]
\Over the course of the last 15 years we have seen an increase in the number of frozen corporate defined benefit plans in Canada. Frozen plans have limited the future benefit accruals in the plan, either through closing membership to new employees or, in some cases, freezing future service accruals to existing members. This fundamental […]