A group of Canadian pension plan investment managers is calling on companies to standardize their environmental, social and governance disclosure to help them in their investment decision-making and better assess and manage their risks. Together, the eight fund managers oversee a total of about $1.6 trillion in assets and are committing to strengthening ESG disclosure within […]
Demand for defined benefit pension plan sponsors to focus on environmental, social and governance factors through their investments is growing. Both plan sponsors and members have been increasingly vocal about keeping ESG issues top of mind. For example, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan has worked on balancing this increased appetite for ethical investing with an overall […]
As bond yields drop, many Canadian pension plans are looking at new strategies to increase returns through alternative investments, according to a webinar hosted by the Portfolio Management Association of Canada on Tuesday. “We’re looking for uncorrelated scalable risk, with low or no correlation to major markets like equity or credit,” said Jane Segal, portfolio […]
The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan is well-known for its liability-driven investing strategy, which helped it successfully weather the 2008 financial crisis. During the coronavirus fallout, in an era of historically low interest rates, the HOOPP is working on developing LDI 2.0. “We’re very focused on liabilities, but what you do when interest rates are […]
The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan is well-known for its liability-driven investing strategy, which helped it successfully weather the 2008 financial crisis. During the coronavirus fallout, in an era of historically low interest rates, the HOOPP is working on developing LDI 2.0. “We’re very focused on liabilities, but what you do when interest rates are […]
The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, along with three other large pension plans and other stakeholders, is forming the Global Peer Financing Association. The goal of the GPFA is to encourage and improve options for peer-to-peer trading activity in the securities lending and repo markets for the benefit of asset owners, according to a press release. […]
Several prominent players in Canada’s pension industry have signed onto the BlackNorth Initiative, pledging to take specific actions within their organizations to tackle anti-Black systemic racism. “The persistent inequities across our country underscore our urgent, national need to address and alleviate racial, ethnic and other tensions and to promote the elimination of anti-Black systemic racism […]
Several prominent players in Canada’s pensions and benefits industries have signed onto the BlackNorth Initiative, pledging to take specific actions within their organizations to tackle anti-Black racism. “The persistent inequities across our country underscore our urgent, national need to address and alleviate racial, ethnic and other tensions and to promote the elimination of anti-Black systemic […]
Canada’s 11 largest pension funds should be able to maintain their current credit ratings through ongoing market turmoil, according to Fitch Ratings Inc. Nevertheless, return expectations are under significant pressure from the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, said the ratings agency in a new report. “Fund performance will depend on asset mix, which is largely […]
Many pension plans use risk systems to test how different scenarios would affect their portfolios. Traditionally, risk models use thousands of scenarios. The likelihood that these scenarios will occur is weighted equally and generally reflects short-term asset characteristics. On the other hand, pension plans also use asset-liability models for long-term portfolio construction. This could result […]