Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) has put the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec on CreditWatch negative, which could result in a downgrading of its previously stellar credit marks.
While the Caisse currently enjoys a AAA rating—the highest grade given by S&P—the rating agency will monitor the Caisse’s credit for three months, mostly due to concern over the giant pension manager’s recent $39.8 billion loss and rumours of government influence over its management.
“We expect there may be debate within Quebec political circles on the possibility of more fundamental changes in the Caisse’s relationship with the Quebec government, potentially reducing the independence with which it makes its investment decisions,” said S&P in a statement.
The Caisse says it will work closely with S&P to provide information on senior management stability, its strategy for handling the current investment climate, risk management, and the institution’s independence vis-à-vis the government.
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Mercer Launches New Online Retirement Planning Tools
Mercer has recently added two new personalized online retirement-planning tools (called MyView and MyView Plus) for its defined contribution administration clients, to help participants better understand and plan for retirement.
“Our research has shown time and again that retirement savers need and want help in planning for a successful retirement and that employers and their administration providers are their No. 1 source for information,” notes Suzanne Nolan, director of marketing and communications for Mercer’s outsourcing business.
The MyView Retirement Planner automatically populates certain personal data points such as salary, current account balance and other demographic-type information, allowing users to create a wide variety of financial scenarios. As the input fields are adjusted, the results are dynamically adjusted to indicate the impact even small changes can have on potential income in retirement.
“Our clients are rightly concerned about any decline in their participants’ contribution rates, given the recent market volatility,” explains Nolan. “By bringing MyView and MyView Plus onto our standard platform, we feel we can help our clients by enabling more informed decisionmaking and encouraging behaviors that lead to better retirement planning.”
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United Financial Reassigns Managers
United Financial has announced changes to the management of 13 managed portfolios, some of which will now be managed by corporate cousins under the CI Financial umbrella.
Three U.S. Equity Value mandates will be transferred from AllianceBernstein to Epoch Investment Partners. The three International Equity Value mandates managed by AllianceBernstein and AGF International Advisors will be managed by Altrinsic Global Advisors.
Management of two International Equity Diversified mandates will be transferred from AllianceBernstein to Altrinsic Global Advisors and Cambridge Advisors.
The Institutional Managed U.S. Equity Pool, currently managed by AllianceBernstein, will be managed by Epoch.
Connor, Clark & Lunn Investment Management will be replaced by Cambridge Advisors on two Canadian Equity Growth mandates. Two Canadian Equity Diversified mandates, currently managed by CC&L and Tetrem Capital Management, will be managed by Cambridge and Tetrem.
Contracts with AllianceBernstein will be terminated March 1, while all others will terminate April 1.
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RBC Closes Channel Island Deal
Royal Bank of Canada has closed the deal to purchase Mourant Private Wealth, which operates from the Channel Island of Jersey, as well as Dubai and Cayman.
The acquisition gives RBC Wealth Management a presence of 1,000 staff in Jersey, making the firm one of the largest financial services employers in the jurisdiction. The firm has an additional 300 staff in Guernsey and 200 more in London, Cheltenham and Edinburgh.
The deal brings more than £3.5 billion in AUM to RBC Wealth Management, bringing the firm’s wealth management AUM in the British Isles to more than £66.5 billion.
“Our latest acquisition and on-going client-facing staff hiring program demonstrates RBC’s commitment to developing our British Isles wealth platform,” said Paul Patterson, head of RBC Wealth Management in the British Isles.
“This transaction advances our long-term strategy to build further on our core business of providing integrated global wealth management services and solutions to international clients by hiring experienced professionals with strong client relationships.”
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Pathway Hires New Portfolio Manager
Flow-through share specialist Pathway Asset Management has named William D.B. Koenig, CFA, CMA, as portfolio manager.
Effective immediately, Koenig takes over portfolio management of all Pathway, MineralFields and EnergyFields flow-through-limited partnerships, as well as the mining and energy series of the corporate class mutual fund Pathway Multi Series Fund Inc.
With the hiring of Koenig, Pathway has terminated its contract with sub-advisory firms Kingsmont Investment Management and Brickburn Asset Management. Koenig has been managing the several Pathway portfolios since last year, as a portfolio manager at Brickburn.
Koenig is the former chief investment officer of the Norrep Funds (Hesperian Capital), during a four-year period when that firm’s assets grew from $70 million to over $900 million.