The Canadian Investment Review’s Investment Governance Award will go to a pension plan that has implemented improvements at the board, governance and/or policy level to improve outcomes for pension plan members and create greater efficiency. Highlights about the three finalists are available below: Desjardins Group Pension Plan The Desjardins Group Pension Plan has over $16 […]
Despite the low interest rate environment, it still makes sense for defined benefit pension plan sponsors to adopt a liability-driven investment strategy, said Serge Lapierre, global head of LDI at Manulife Investment Management, during a webinar sponsored by the firm on Monday. LDI investing is a risk management framework, he noted. “It’s not an asset […]
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 vast majority of investors (82 per cent) are satisfied with how their portfolios performed in the first half of 2020, despite some weak results in strategies such as emerging market debt and smart beta, according to a new study of 368 investors with combined assets of approximately US$11 trillion. Following the quickest equity market […]
Looking at public equity market charts for the year so far, many form a V-shape. In these V-shaped situations of rapid decline followed almost immediately by a strong recovery, two very different investment scenarios can prove beneficial, according to a recent blog by Reka Janosik, vice-president at MSCI Research and Thomas Verbraken, the organization’s executive […]
Target-date funds lead to defined contribution plan members taking more risk and becoming more diversified than they would be if left to their own devices. But despite these benefits, TDFs fail to provide what members really want and need — a reliable income replacement for life managed by somebody else. My colleague Ioulia Tretiakova and […]
The volatility caused by the coronavirus pandemic made the first quarter of 2020 rough for many Canadian defined benefit pension plans. In early June, the Local Authorities Pension Plan Corp., which is mandated to invest with the Alberta Investment Management Corp., said it began the year with $50.6 billion in assets under management and ended […]
During the global financial crisis, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. implemented a new governance report to bring together all elements of its investment portfolio and communicate risk to the board, says Max Giolitti, the fund’s former head of asset allocation and risk, and current chief risk officer at Verus Investments. The work began by educating […]
Communication can be a challenge for pension plan sponsors and trustees when trying to remain focused on the long term, said Matthew Leatherman, director at FCLTGlobal, during a webinar hosted by the Canadian Investment Review on Friday. “Trustee directors need risk information in order to fully govern and oversee their organization in a long-term manner. […]
As private markets continue to make up a large portion of pension plans’ portfolios, they can’t ignore the risk management of these assets. One issue to consider is implementation, said Nalaka De Silva, head of private markets solutions at Aberdeen Standard Investments Inc., during a session at the Canadian Investment Review’s Plan Sponsor Exchange conference […]