The recent pressure put on Canadian pensions plans from private managers and governments to re-discover an investment home bias has been met with little enthusiasm, despite special interest by both federal and provincial governments to potentially tap pension fund capital for infrastructure given that current expenditure eats up a large share of the budget. Infrastructure […]
The funded position of a typical defined benefit pension plan rose both on a solvency basis (2.8 per cent) and an accounting basis (2.3 per cent) during February, according to Telus Health’s latest pension index. It found the solvency of the average DB plan rose to 103.6 per cent in February, up from 100.8 per […]
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is increasing its investments in private market assets to maximize returns from its highest-performing asset classes. The pension fund said it’s increasing its private market allocations from 33 per cent to 40 per cent, according to a press release, which noted CalPERS is increasing private equity allocations from 13 […]
The average Canadian defined benefit pension plan generated a median return of 8.4 per cent for the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a report by Northern Trust Corp. The report, which tracks DB plans within the Northern Trust Canada universe, found the average Canadian DB plan ended the year with a median 10 per cent return. […]
The average Canadian defined benefit pension plan posted returns of 8.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to RBC Investor Services. It found the average Canadian DB plan ended 2023 with a 9.1 per cent return, a significant increase from negative 10.3 per cent in 2022. Read: Average Canadian DB pension plan returns […]
While the funded position of a typical defined benefit pension plan increased on a solvency basis in November, it decreased on an accounting basis in that period, according to the latest pension index from Telus Health. It found the solvency of the average DB plan rose to 109.1 per cent in November, up from 108.2 […]
U.S.-based defined benefit pension plan sponsors are increasingly looking to assess their liability-driven investment strategies as they reach fully funded statuses, according to a new study by Coalition Greenwich and commissioned by Franklin Templeton. The study found nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of pension plan sponsors reported funding ratios of 100 per cent or higher, […]
The Association of Canadian Pension Management is calling on the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions to provide more detail on how pension plans can enhance their investment risk management strategies. In an open letter responding to a consultation by the OSFI, Ric Marrero, chief executive officer of the ACPM, said while the paper […]
While investors are familiar with stress-testing their portfolios for various economic scenarios from a bottom-up perspective, a new tool is now available to incorporate climate change into stress-testing scenarios from the top down. Ortec Finance, in partnership with Cambridge Econometrics, is launching a systemic climate risk scenario tool for institutional investors. It incorporates climate risks […]
A U.S. and Canadian perspective on LDI