The Halifax Port ILA/HEA has found a way to provide its defined contribution pension plan members with a defined benefit upon retirement — and it’s been doing so successfully for 35 years. As a private sector multi-employer plan, the pension has about 450 active members, 300 retirees and about $210 million in assets. The DB […]
It’s hard to believe that just recently, people weren’t cutting their own hair or binge-watching Tiger King. At the beginning of the year, defined benefit funding levels were at record highs and many pension plan sponsors were considering reducing their pension risk. Fast forward a few months and the novel coronavirus has turned the world […]
The federal government is halting solvency special payments for federally regulated defined benefit pension plans until the end of 2020. The moratorium on payments under the Pension Benefits Standards Act is aimed at ensuring that employers have financial resources to continue their operations and pension plans, as well as to protect plan members, said the […]
West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. isn’t annuitizing multiple defined benefit plans to get out of the pension business. In fact, the British Columbia-based integrated wood products company is committed to DB. “We believe we get tremendous value out of our DB plans around recruitment and definitely around retention of our employees,” says Elaine Jensen, the […]
The 2008 financial crisis is an event that defined benefit plan sponsors won’t soon forget. Roller-coaster markets exposed gaps in their investment strategies, while de-risking appeared on pension committee agendas as they assessed the damage and focused on the road to fully funded statuses. Back in 2008, few tools were available to de-risk pension plans. […]
With a defined benefit plan closed since 1991, Husky Energy Inc. was facing a dilemma. It wanted to annuitize the plan but had active members still accruing benefits and wasn’t ready for a complete windup. To the organization’s knowledge, no products were available in Canada for plans to provide an annuity for active members still […]
With a defined benefit plan closed since 1991, Husky Energy Inc. was facing a dilemma. It wanted to annuitize the plan but had active members still accruing benefits and wasn’t ready for a complete windup. To the organization’s knowledge, no products were available in Canada for plans to provide an annuity for active members still […]
Last year was a strong year for the Canadian annuity market and the start of 2019 is looking promising as well, said Marie Desrochers, director of client relationships and defined benefit solutions at Sun Life Financial, speaking at a CI Institutional Investment Management event this week. While official year-end numbers aren’t out for 2018, Sun […]
Sun Life Financial reported a fourth-quarter profit of $419.6 million on Wednesday. On a per-share basis, the Toronto-based company said it had profit of 65 cents. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 73 cents per share. The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research […]
In recent years, pension plan sponsors were optimistic about upcoming de-risking activity. In a Towers Watson (now Willis Towers Watson) survey conducted in the summer of 2014, 67% of survey respondents indicated they intended to reduce pension risk by 2017. However, many plan sponsors also said conditions needed to improve in order for them to accelerate their […]