The British Columbia Investment Management Corp. has released its environmental, social and governance strategy, which outlines its beliefs, principles, governance and how its investment strategies consider ESG factors. The strategy includes four components: integrate, influence, invest and insight. In particular, the BCI is focused on integrating ESG analysis and risk management into investment processes, influencing […]
The Alberta Investment Management Corp. has completed its review of a volatility trading strategy, known as VOLTS, that resulted in $2.1 billion in losses in the wake of the coronavirus crash. While the strategy would have been expected to generate some losses in periods of market volatility, the losses were far greater than expected, noted a report on […]
The Public Sector Pension Investment Board saw a negative 0.6 per cent return for its last fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2020. Severe market declines in the lead up to the end of March took a heavy toll. However, the fund did outperform its reference portfolio’s benchmark, which posted a negative 2.2 per cent […]
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is leading a new tranche of financing for animal-free dairy maker Perfect Day Inc. The financing marks an expansion of Perfect Day’s series C financing to $300 million, to which the CPPIB’s thematic investing group is set to contribute $50 million. The California-based company uses fermentation in microflora to […]
Canada’s 11 largest pension funds should be able to maintain their current credit ratings through ongoing market turmoil, according to Fitch Ratings Inc. Nevertheless, return expectations are under significant pressure from the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, said the ratings agency in a new report. “Fund performance will depend on asset mix, which is largely […]
The Public Sector Pension Investment Board posted a negative 0.6 per cent net return for the fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2020. Severe market declines in the lead up to the end of March took a heavy toll. However, the fund did outperform its reference portfolio, which saw a negative 2.2 per cent return. […]
The coronavirus crisis may be a signal for some pension plan sponsors that it’s time to revisit their appetite for risk. A typical asset-liability study involves stochastic modelling to project thousands of future economic scenarios and see how a pension plan would react under those scenarios, says Dean Newell, vice-president at Actuarial Solutions Inc. Particularly, the […]
With its recent acquisition of environmental, social and governance data analytics provider Sustainalytics, Morningstar Inc. is taking aim at the disparate ESG disclosure requirements still hampering the investment industry. In a recent report, Morningstar sussed out some of the issues hindering ESG measurement tools. “Simply put, ESG disclosures from issuers are all too often inconsistent and […]
While the Pension Investment Association of Canada strongly supports Nova Scotia’s recent pension funding changes, it’s calling on the provincial government to tweak the provision for adverse deviation calculation and access to solvency reserve accounts. Nova Scotia’s pension funding changes took effect on April 1, reducing solvency funding to 85 per cent, with any shortfalls required to be […]
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s 2019 climate change report contains its first-ever, independently assured portfolio carbon footprint. Even as the plan’s assets grew in 2019, it’s overall carbon footprint fell by about 15 per cent, driven in large part by the sale of a particularly high-emitting private asset, according to the report, which was assured […]