Global institutional investors’ assets under management rose 7.3 per cent in 2017 to US$36.2 trillion, the largest increase in five years, according to the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. The London, England, and Singapore-based independent think-tank’s report tracks 750 global public pension, sovereign funds and central banks, holding assets equivalent to 45 per cent of the […]
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is increasing its stake in Chicago-based Invenergy to a 52.4 per cent ownership of the company. The company has developed renewable energy projects producing about 14,000 megawatts of power, including wind and solar power generation facilities, as well as advanced energy storage, around the world. “CDPQ is leading […]
Canadian defined benefit pension plans held steady in positive territory in the first quarter of 2018 with returns of 0.2 per cent, according to RBC Investor and Treasury Services. That’s down, however, from returns of 2.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 and 4.4 per cent in the final quarter of last year. Canadian equities took […]
The Alberta Investment Management Corp. and its investment partner, Portus Retail Partners LLP, have acquired one of Belgium’s newest urban shopping centres. Docks Bruxsel, which opened in 2016, is the first new shopping centre in Brussels in more than 30 years, according to a press release. It includes fashion and lifestyle retailers, leisure attractions, event […]
While North American investors have traditionally perceived environmental, social and governance factors as a way of injecting personal philosophy into business practices, Japan’s business community has recently — and suddenly — begun to implement the concept and its uses in a different way. “What’s really evolved is a different set of ESG criteria,” says Linda-Eling […]
The Canadian dollar has had its share of ups and downs over the past year or so. At the beginning of 2017, it sat at 74 cents U.S., rising to a recent high of 82 cents in September. Since then, it has fluctuated at around the 80-cent level, falling by a few cents throughout early […]
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is acquiring a 40 per cent minority stake in European Camping Group, a provider of mobile-home holiday rentals. The company’s current owners — global alternative asset manager the Carlyle Group and French investment bank Montefiore Investment — will maintain majority control. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter […]
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has completed a second round of investing in its Indian-based joint strategic investment platform with the Phoenix Mills Ltd. The $185 million round of financing brings the CPPIB’s total investment in the project to $328 million and a 49 per cent stake in the platform, which aims to develop, own and […]
One week, U.S. President Donald Trump is touting new tariffs for imports of steel and aluminum. Not long after, his administration is expressing optimism about efforts to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. What are institutional investors to make of the flurry of activity? At the beginning of March, Trump announced new tariffs for imports of […]
Earlier this week, China’s parliament changed the country’s constitution to allow for current President Xi Jinping to remain in power indefinitely, rather than the traditional two five-year terms. Not since the days of Mao Zedong, the founder of the communist state, has a leader had the power to govern for longer than that. As Canadian pension plans increasingly […]