The funded position of a typical Canadian defined benefit pension plan rose on both a solvency and accounting basis in April, according to Telus Health’s latest pension index. It found the solvency of the average DB plan rose to 106.4 per cent in April, up from 106 per cent in March. The accounting index, which […]
While real assets are largely absent among the investment options offered by Canadian defined contribution pension plans, they can offer significant long-term benefits to plan members, said Andrew Knox, managing director of Franklin Templeton Investments’ global real assets fund, during a session at Benefits Canada’s 2024 DC Plan Summit in February. “[Defined contribution] investors in […]
Institutional investors in North America owned US$56 billion worth of exchange-traded fund assets at the end of 2023, a 22 per cent increase year over year, according to a new report by S&P Global. The report, based on financial disclosures from U.S. and Canadian pension funds, endowments and foundations and sovereign wealth funds, found the […]
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 average Canadian defined benefit pension plan posted a median return of 3.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2024, according to a new report by RBC Investor Services. The report, which tracks performance and asset allocation across Canadian DB plans, credited the positive investment return to the strong performance of equities. Read: Average […]
The funded ratio of the average Canadian defined benefit pension plan, excluding the effect of asset smoothing, reached 124 per cent as at March 31, 2024, up seven per cent from the fourth quarter of 2023, according to a new report by Normandin Beaudry. It found the average solvency ratio of Canadian pension plans was […]
The Alberta Investment Management Corp.’s total fund generated a net return of 6.9 per cent in 2023, 1.8 percentage points below its 8.7 per cent benchmark. As of Dec. 31, 2023, the AIMCo’s total assets under management were $160.6 billion, compared to $158 billion in 2022. Its balanced fund generated a net return of eight per […]
The Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology pension plan saw a net return of 9.5 per cent for 2023, with net assets of $20.1 billion, up from $18.2 billion in 2022, according to its latest annual report. As of Jan. 1, 2024, the investment organization maintained a healthy funding level of 124 per cent on a going-concern […]
Simply put, a glide path is a calculation designed to support an employee’s desired retirement timeline through investments in a target-date fund. When an employee first joins a defined contribution pension plan with a target-date fund, they’re exposed to capital appreciation assets that offer the most attractive risk-adjusted returns in the wealth accumulation phase, typically […]
The Investment Management Corp. of Ontario is reporting a net return of 5.6 per cent for 2023, with net assets increasing to $77.4 billion. The investment organization’s year-end report found public equities returned 18 per cent in 2023, followed by global credit (7.7 per cent), fixed income (5.9 per cent), private equity (5.7 per cent), […]