Canada edges out Britain to take fifth place on global pension ranking

Read: CPP fund grows by $9.8B with ‘significant uplift’ from global equity

As part of the report, Willis Towers Watson has listed the top 20 pension funds around the world. The list includes two familiar Canadian names:

1. Government pension investment, Japan

2. Government pension fund, Norway

3. Federal retirement thrift, United States

4. National pension, South Korea

5. ABP, Netherlands

6. National social security, China

7. California public employees, United States

8. Canada Pension Plan, Canada

9. Central provident fund, Singapore

10. PFZW, Netherlands

11. California state teachers, United States

12. New York state common, United States

13. Local government officials, Japan

14. New York City retirement, United States

15. Employees provident fund, Malaysia

16. Florida state board, United States

17. Texas teachers, United States

18. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Canada

19. GEPF, South Africa

20. ATP, Denmark

The Canada Pension Plan fund ranks fifth on the list of the largest sovereign pension funds. According to Willis Towers Watson, the increase in assets for the 300 largest funds was an improvement on the decline of 3.4 per cent in 2015. Despite the improvement, Roger Unwin, global head of investment content at Willis Towers Watson, noted the continuing challenges.

Read: Sounding Board: Sovereigns turning to real estate amid challenging return environment

“The search for attractively priced assets at acceptable risk continues to be a driving force in shaping the fortunes of pension funds and their ability to meet respective missions and objectives,” he said.

“This is increasingly hard and reduces the shine from a year in which, the largest asset owners have been able to achieve superior growth in this year’s figures. Central to this result has been the ability of leading asset owners to adapt to the ever-changing investment environment, through improvements in governance and the ability to learn from their peers. The desire of asset owners to implement best-practice and sound governance across their organization has strengthened and will be a key factor in their future success.”

As for the breakdown of pension fund holdings, defined benefit funds accounted for 65.5 per cent of total assets in the ranking, which was down slightly from 65.9 per cent in 2015. Defined benefit assets increased by 5.6 per cent in 2016, compared to a 9.6 per cent rise for defined contribution plans. The public sector accounted for 40 per cent of assets, followed by sovereign funds at 28 per cent, corporate plans at 18 per cent and private independent ones at 14 per cent. A total of 28 new funds have entered the ranking over the last five years, with the United States contributing a net of 13 additions during that time period. Canada saw a net loss of one fund from the ranking.

Read: 2017 Top 100 Pension Funds Report: The evolution of DB

Here’s a list of the 18 Canadian funds (with assets in millions and in U.S. dollars, along with their ranking) included as part of the top 300 pension plans: