In his keynote address at the 2021 Global Investment Conference, Karthik Ramanna, professor of business and public policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, described the practice of greenwashing in corporate environmental, social and governance reports as “rampant.” “I’m going to give you some fairly specific tactical tools to tell the signal […]
With gas and oil prices reaching new heights last week, panicking both politicians and consumers, we must ask ourselves if this behaviour is typical of commodity prices in every business cycle or if we’re at the threshold of a major economic disaster? In the 1930s, Nicholas Kaldor analyzed commodity prices and their behaviour over the […]
When the University Pension Plan officially launched in July 2021, it did so with Barbara Zvan as its inaugural president and chief executive officer. Fresh from a 25-year career with the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, she was appointed by the UPP’s board of trustees in July 2020. While most of the foundational work had been […]
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is taking a majority share in a California-based digital platform development company. The Caisse secured the shares in Wizeline Inc. through a transaction with the British private equity fund Apax Partners LLP. Wizeline, which was founded in 2014 as a cloud product development company, is also known […]
Bâtirente is introducing a new strategy that seeks to optimize its fixed income, global equity and environmentally responsible investment allocations. The Montreal-based pension’s new fund optimization plan specifically addresses the organization’s main priorities. By implementing the new plan, it will seek to improve its funds’ diversity in fixed income and global equities and focus on […]
With bond returns tied to interest rates, it’s no surprise Canadian pension funds are increasingly seeking other ways to boost fixed income yields. Canadian interest rates have been trending downward for the last 30 years, from a high of 10.3 per cent in 1990 to around 1.75 per cent in early 2020, according to the […]
The future will increasingly favour institutional investors that can break old patterns of thought. As we move forward and industries and new technologies converge at an increasing rate, the need for a shift in mindset is imperative. One way we believe this to be possible in investing is through a multi-disciplinary approach. Read: Can machine learning […]
A number of Canadian institutional investors, including the British Columbia Investment Management Corp., the British Columbia Municipal Pension Plan, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and the Investment Management Corp. of Ontario, are among 457 signatories of a statement calling on governments around the globe to take accelerated action to combat the climate […]
The University of Waterloo is committing to reducing the carbon footprint of its pension and endowment investment portfolios by 50 per cent by 2030, with the goal of achieving full carbon neutrality by 2040. “With this new commitment, the university is . . . aligning its investment practices with its teaching, research and operations on climate change, […]
Manulife Financial Corp. is linking its executive team goals to the company’s climate action plan, including committing to a net-zero focus by reducing emissions operationally, adopting sustainable investing practices and developing solutions that contribute to climate change mitigation. Members of the organization’s executive leadership team already have performance goals linked to diversity, equity and inclusion, employee engagement […]