The pension risk-transfer market had another record-breaking year for transactions in 2019, according to Eckler’s latest report. Transactions for the year came to $5.2 billion, with buy-in annuities taking the lead as the dominant risk-transfer strategy with sales of almost $2.6 billion. The average transaction size continued to rise, increasing by 40 per cent, from […]
The union representing more than 200,000 Canadian public sector employees says the Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s investment in a for-profit, long-term care provider is inconsistent with its fiduciary and legal obligations to plan members. The Public Service Alliance of Canada is calling on the PSP to end its investment in Revera Inc., its wholly […]
Sustainable indexes largely outperformed during the first quarter of 2020 amid market turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to BlackRock Inc.’s latest sustainability report. “While this short time period is not determinative, it aligns with the resilience we have seen in sustainable strategies during prior downturns,” said the report. The big question for institutional […]
Communication can be a challenge for pension plan sponsors and trustees when trying to remain focused on the long term, said Matthew Leatherman, director at FCLTGlobal, during a webinar hosted by the Canadian Investment Review on Friday. “Trustee directors need risk information in order to fully govern and oversee their organization in a long-term manner. […]
The vast majority (96 per cent) of institutional investors feel they have an important role to play in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, social and economic inequality and the need for infrastructure development, according to a new survey by Natixis Investment Managers. About half (48 per cent) of survey respondents said institutional […]
The Alberta Investment Management Corp.’s board of directors has released a statement outlining its response to the poor performance of its volatility trading strategy. In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, the strategy resulted in a loss of $2.1 billion or about two per cent of the AIMCo’s portfolio. “Oversight of AIMCo’s investment strategies and risk management is […]
While the coronavirus pandemic certainly doesn’t change pension plan sponsors’ fundamental fiduciary duty to their plan members, the crisis is creating circumstances that will test how that responsibility manifests. Fiduciary duty arises when one party has a certain vulnerability in respect to another party, said Kenneth Burns, partner at Lawson Lundell LLP, in a webinar roundtable hosted by the […]
To say things have changed since I wrote my last editorial is a massive understatement. Of course, the early rumblings of the coronavirus pandemic were already underway in the early weeks of 2020, but they were still very far removed from Canada’s reality. At the time of writing these words in mid-April, worldwide coronavirus cases […]
The United Way Greater Toronto introduced a defined benefit pension plan in 1965 and moved to a hybrid plan in 1990. While the DB side was fully paid by the employer, the defined contribution component allowed employees to contribute up to four per cent of their annual salary with a 50 per cent employer match. […]
With environmental, social and governance considerations hovering on the agendas of legislators, shareholders and consumers, it’s easy to overlook the fact that responsible investment can be fraught with legal risks for pension plan sponsors. However, plan sponsors can mitigate much of that risk with a proper understanding of the distinction between ESG factor integration and […]