The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan posted a net return of 2.5 per cent for 2018, down from 2017’s net return of 9.7 per cent. The pension fund outperformed its benchmark by 1.8 per cent, remained fully funded for the sixth consecutive year and increased its assets by $1.6 billion to a total of $191.1 billion. “Our […]
Multiple stakeholder groups are praising the 2019 federal budget’s proposal to amend tax rules to allow for late-life and variable annuity structures. The proposed advanced life deferred annuity would be a qualifying annuity purchase under registered retirement savings plans, registered retirement income funds, including trusts run by these accounts, as well as defined contribution pension […]
With turbulent equity markets, fixed income has a major role to play as defined benefit pensions look to more closely match their liabilities and investments, says Steve Peacher, president of Sun Life Investment Management. “The big mismatch over time has been a duration and curve mismatch,” he says. “People have had long liabilities. They haven’t focused […]
Artificial intelligence and blockchain are buzzwords in virtually every industry, but there are specific ways these technologies can make improvements in the pension world, according to Serge Boccassini, manager for defined contribution product solutions at Northern Trust. “How can it be used to help people save more for retirement [and] save better for retirement? And […]
In its 2019 budget on Tuesday, the federal government announced a number of proposals regarding pension protections, off the back of recent high-profile corporate bankruptcies that have thrown the sustainability of some Canadians’ defined benefit plans into doubt during the past few years. Indeed, the federal government received 4,400 submissions in response to its request for comment on the […]
The Shareholder Association for Research and Education is joining the College of Applied Arts and Technology’s new DBPlus pension plan. “As a small, non-profit organization, it’s difficult for us to access the kinds of plans that have traditionally been available to larger organizations,” says Kevin Thomas, executive director of the SHARE. “So, like other non-profits, […]
While the pension industry is interested in environmental, social and governance factors, that isn’t translating into action when it comes to incorporating ESG funds into defined contribution plans’ investment options, according to a new report by Cerulli Associates. The report found, ESG-oriented investment options aren’t becoming too popular in the U.S. for three key reasons: fee […]
In 2017, New Jersey’s Police and Firemen’s Retirement System took a closer look at its investment in Nike Inc. following an advertising campaign featuring former National Football League player Colin Kaepernick, who had ignited controversy in 2016 by taking a knee during a pre-game national anthem in protest of the police treatment and killings of […]
While estimating the longevity of a pension plan’s membership isn’t a new concept, developments in using big data and new tools in predictive modelling could go a long way to making predictions more accurate. “Traditionally, most benefit plans were using standard mortality tables and not really differentiating how much longevity risk they had,” says Manuel […]
The British Columbia Investment Management Corp. is teaming up with RBC Global Asset Management Inc. and QuadReal Property Group on a project involving $7 billion worth of commercial real estate. The venture will bring together more than 40 of the BCI’s existing Canadian real estate assets in one portfolio. The BCI and the newly minted RBC Canadian […]