During Benefits Canada’s annual DC Plan Summit, plan sponsors participated in interactive sessions. They split into small groups and were given questions to discuss. Based on these discussions, moderators later offered their insights and relayed key take-aways.
Colin Sinclare, managing director, institutional sales — Western Canada, MFS Investment Management Canada, shares the best ideas from the topic they discussed.
The Challenge:
It’s important for plan sponsors and members to take a long-term view in a short-term world with respect to evaluating investment managers in DC plan arrangements. Many plans these days have both DB and DC programs. Some plan sponsors may use the same investment philosophy across both plans. Others have different approaches for DB and DC plans.
Survival Tips for Employers:
- There is value in creating a statement of investment philosophies and beliefs. For example, will they be active or passive investment managers? Do they get involved in currency hedging? This can be used as a road map and answers the question Why are we doing what we are doing? It allows continuity going forward in the event of manager turnover.
- Clear, consistent and transparent communication across both types of plans is key to ensuring that both sponsors and members follow this road map. Less is more.
Additional videos from the DC Plan Summit can be found here.