As Canada’s pension landscape has evolved over the past 45 years, Michel St-Germain has been helping plan sponsors navigate it all. St-Germain, who is currently president of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, retired as a partner from Mercer in June 2020 after first joining the organization on Jan. 1, 1975. When looking back at his […]
The private equity market was on a hot streak coming into 2020 and despite the economic wreckage caused by the coronavirus, fundraising has generally held up, said Jamie Becker, counsel for private equity and pension fund investments at Torys LLP, when speaking at the Canadian Investment Review’s 2020 Global Investment Conference in September. “There was […]
The coronavirus pandemic has taught investors that looking even six months ahead can be a challenge, so how can plan sponsors take a longer-term view? “The further ahead you look, the more variables there are and the more embarrassing your predictions might turn out to be,” said Ben Drury, client services director at Baillie Gifford, […]
Historically, the structural case for investing in emerging markets was centred around the idea of convergence — that over time, relatively poor countries will grow their economies and the corporate base in those countries can take advantage of superior returns, said Nicholas Field, emerging markets strategist and fund manager at Schroders, when speaking at the […]
Impact investing has been a common concept in the private markets space, but now public equity investors can make an impact as well. At its essence, impact investing is investing in assets with the intention of generating both measurable social or environmental impacts alongside financial returns. “It’s a very broad definition, it leaves a lot […]
In the world of investing that incorporates environmental, social and governance factors, environment and governance have been very prominent parts of the conversation to date. And now, the pandemic is shining a new light on the importance of considering social factors in investment decision-making. At the Canadian Investment Review’s 2020 Global Investment Conference, Catherine Jackson, […]
The geopolitical systems and institutions that formed after the Second World War are coming under fire and a shift in global order is underway, said Erik Brown, a research analyst at the Global Risk Institute, when speaking at the Canadian Investment Review’s Global Investment Conference in September. In particular, China and other emerging markets have […]
In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, the stock market has recovered to pre-pandemic levels for various reasons, but institutional investors shouldn’t be overly optimistic and must keep risks top of mind, said Campbell Harvey, a professor of finance at Duke University, when speaking at the Canadian Investment Review’s 2020 Global Investment Conference in September. […]
The pension industry is at a turning point, with the asset value of defined contribution plans growing, while defined benefit plans are shrinking. “In a decade’s time, you will have a situation where DC will be almost $50 trillion in size, but DB will be $10 trillion in size and there will be big changes […]
While speaking at the Canadian Investment Review’s 2020 Global Investment Conference in September, Catherine Yeung, investment director at Fidelity International, provided an overview of key trends for investors to watch, given the rising prominence of China in global portfolios. In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, e-commerce usage across the country has accelerated, said Yeung. […]