Despite several bumps in the decade since the 2008/09 financial crisis, the swift and brutal crash in global equity prices when the coronavirus was declared a pandemic sent pension investors reaching for their playbooks to implement defensive strategies to mitigate the damage. “People have worked very hard at just acting on the set strategies that […]
The San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association implemented a simple innovation 15 years ago that’s added nearly US$1 billion to the fund’s total value as of Aug. 31, 2020. That innovation is “informed rebalancing,” said Arun Muralidhar, adjunct professor of finance at George Washington University, when speaking at the Canadian Investment Review’s Investment Innovation Conference […]
The Canadian Investment Review’s Risk Management Award will go to a pension plan that has successfully implemented a robust approach to its risk management function. This can include implementing de-risking or re-risking or it can showcase day-to-day processes in place for risk management in pension plan investments. Highlights about the three finalists are available below: […]
In a market rocked by a considerable increase in cross-asset volatility, the need to search for alternative means of diversification that embrace different sources of risk and return is crucial. One solution for pension plan sponsors to consider is investing in insurance-linked securities. Often a misunderstood and underutilized asset class, insurance-linked securities are investments whose […]
The impact of powerful trends, including aging populations and growing debt levels in the world’s largest economies, has been somewhat mitigated in recent years by the ongoing involvement of central banks in markets and declining interest rates. However, with rates at historic lows, this is not something that can be relied on over the next […]
The last decade of persistently low interest rates, exacerbated by the coronavirus crisis, has created challenges for institutional investors looking to generate income on their bond investments. The challenge has been more acute for pension funds and foundations, who rely on bond investments to fund their ongoing benefit and program obligations. Moreover, indications from global […]
With so much uncertainty on the horizon, should pension plan sponsors be preparing to operate in a deflationary or inflationary environment? In the short term, the economic environment will be deflationary, says Hugh O’Reilly, executive in residence at the Global Risk Institute, noting demand is down because people are staying home and not spending. “And […]
In legal circles, it has always been thought that crises breed litigation. And while that appears to be the case in the current crisis, it may not have been the case in the global financial crisis of 2008/9, as pointed out in a recent article by Eric Blinderman, the chief executive officer for the U.S. […]
At the beginning of September, Provident10, which oversees the administration and asset management for Newfoundland and Labrador’s Public Service Pension Plan, welcomed a new chief investment officer, Michel Malo. With $6.6 billion in invested assets as of year-end 2018, Provident10 is a fairly new entity. In December 2014, the province’s government and its five largest […]
While traditionally, balanced portfolios had 60 per cent in stocks and 40 per cent in bonds, about 90 per cent of the risk budget went to equities, said Perry Teperson, vice-president and portfolio manager at Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel Ltd., speaking at the firm’s institutional investor forum. This is where a balanced portfolio 2.0 comes […]