The Public Sector Pension Investment Board saw a negative 0.6 per cent return for its last fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2020. Severe market declines in the lead up to the end of March took a heavy toll. However, the fund did outperform its reference portfolio’s benchmark, which posted a negative 2.2 per cent […]
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 […]
The Public Sector Pension Investment Board posted a negative 0.6 per cent net return for the fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2020. Severe market declines in the lead up to the end of March took a heavy toll. However, the fund did outperform its reference portfolio, which saw a negative 2.2 per cent return. […]
For years, institutional investors have used absolute return or cash-plus benchmarks to measure infrastructure performance, but it’s time to put these in the past and adopt market-relevant benchmarks based on fair value and representative data, according a new paper by the EDHEC Infrastructure Institute. “From the viewpoint of the state of the art in financial […]
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s 2019 climate change report contains its first-ever, independently assured portfolio carbon footprint. Even as the plan’s assets grew in 2019, it’s overall carbon footprint fell by about 15 per cent, driven in large part by the sale of a particularly high-emitting private asset, according to the report, which was assured […]
A new report by a U.K.-based think tank is suggesting public policy should shift to allow pension plan investments to help bolster the country’s infrastructure needs. The report, by the Social Market Foundation, urged the government to foster the growth of fewer, but larger, pensions funds, with the scale to make major infrastructure investments. “Learning from Australia […]
Before physical distancing, pension plan sponsors typically held in-person meetings and site visits when allocating to new investment managers. “I like to look people in the eye when they’re telling me what they’re going to do,” says Blair Richards, chief executive officer of the Halifax Port ILA/HEA Pension Plan. “It’s very old school and it’s […]
Along with the rest of the globe, Canada isn’t likely to see the V-shaped recovery that institutional investors were hoping for as it stares down the recessionary road ahead. “Canadian activity was also on the softening path even at the end of last year,” says Irene Lauro, an economist at Schroders. “And this is because […]
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is joining a consortium of other institutional investors to invest in certain gas pipeline assets of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. The assets are valued at $20.7 billion and the other investors include Global Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Asset Management Inc., Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, NH Investment & Securities Co Ltd. and Snam, an […]
Canadian institutional investors are operating in a landscape that has changed dramatically since the initial market and policy reactions to the coronavirus pandemic. “A lot has changed over the last five to six months,” said Michael Sager, vice-president and client portfolio manager for multi-asset and currency management at CIBC Asset Management Inc., during a webinar hosted […]