U.S. defined contribution pension plan sponsors are increasingly offering custom target-date funds, according to a new report by the Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association. The report, which analyzed 100 DC plans in both the public and private sectors, found the plan sponsors used more than 1,000 investment strategies involving custom target-date funds in 2021, up […]
The Alberta Investment Management Corp. has received a top grade in a survey of the environmental, social and governance integration and performance of signatories of the United Nations’ principles of responsible investing in 2021. The PRI, an organization founded by a group of institutional investment organizations, launched the pilot survey to track the ESG performance […]
In the Expert Commission on Pensions’ 2008 review of Ontario’s pension system, it recommended an agency or unit of the provincial government serve as a pension champion. According to the commission, the pension champion’s responsibilities would include working closely with stakeholders, promoting and facilitating innovation in the pension system and leading policy development efforts in […]
The market value of assets held by Canadian trusteed pension funds decreased 5.4 per cent to $2.1 trillion in the second quarter of 2022, down from $2.21 trillion in the previous quarter, according to new data from Statistics Canada. Trusteed pension funds posted a net loss of $3.4 billion in the second quarter, compared with […]
If there was one message for defined benefit pension plan sponsor delegates at the 2022 Defined Benefit Investment Forum, it was that the fate of global markets in 2023 is on a knife’s edge. In the keynote address, Douglas Porter, chief economist and managing director at BMO Financial Group, said he expects the Canadian economy […]
Consensus expectations for U.S. inflation and interest rates in 2023 are overly optimistic, said Robert Forsyth, head of SPDR exchange-traded funds strategy and research at State Street Global Advisors SPDR, during a session at the Canadian Investment Review‘s 2022 Defined Benefit Investment Forum. “Our view is that the futures market is still pricing in an […]
While the vast majority (85 per cent) of institutional investors believe the economy is in a recession or will enter a recession next year, two-thirds (65 per cent) think stagflation is the bigger risk ahead, according to a survey by Natixis Investment Managers. The survey, which polled 500 institutional investors across the globe, found more than half […]
The possibility of a global economic slowdown is of greater concern to global institutional investors than rising inflation, according to a new survey from the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. The survey, which polled investors at public pension plans and sovereign wealth funds with combined assets of about US$27 trillion, were asked to rank the […]
Defined contribution pension plan members nearing retirement may need their employers’ help to achieve financial security during an era of low interest rates and increased inflation, according to a new report by the U.S.-based Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association. It found target-date funds are the dominant investment strategy in most DC plans, used by 80 […]
The average discount rate used by Canadian defined benefit pension plans at the end of 2021 was 0.5 per cent higher than the previous year, according to an annual report from LifeWorks Inc. Drawing from figures submitted by 83 Canadian public DB plans, the report found the average plan used a three per cent discount […]