Institutional investors in North America owned US$56 billion worth of exchange-traded fund assets at the end of 2023, a 22 per cent increase year over year, according to a new report by S&P Global. The report, based on financial disclosures from U.S. and Canadian pension funds, endowments and foundations and sovereign wealth funds, found the […]
The recent pressure put on Canadian pensions plans from private managers and governments to re-discover an investment home bias has been met with little enthusiasm, despite special interest by both federal and provincial governments to potentially tap pension fund capital for infrastructure given that current expenditure eats up a large share of the budget. Infrastructure […]
Environmental, social and governance standards have helped investors generate positive annualized returns, with environmental investments leading the pack globally, according to a new study from Amundi Asset Management. The study reviewed the annualized financial returns of long-short portfolios designed with a broad ESG theme and a more specialized approach in North America, Europe, China, India, […]
The funded ratio of U.S. corporate defined benefit pension plans declined to 98.5 per cent in fiscal 2023 from 99.4 per cent in 2022, according to a new report by Milliman Inc. The report, which reviews the financial disclosures of the 100 largest U.S. public corporate DB plans, found their average return on investments was […]
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is joining an investment group acquiring Italian telecommunications provider NetCo. The investment organization will acquire a 17.5 per cent stake of the company for up to $2.9 billion. The deal, which also includes Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. (a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority), Italian infrastructure fund F2i […]
The Investment Management Corp. of Ontario believes an increasingly icy dynamic between the U.S. and China could lead to heightened volatility for institutional investors this year, says Nick Chamie, the IMCO’s chief strategist and senior managing director of total portfolio and capital markets. “If we’re no longer zeroing in on maximizing economic efficiency, we’re no longer […]
Institutional investors could face a mild economic recession in the U.S. at the end of the first half of 2024, according to a new report from Amundi Asset Management. It projected the global economy to grow by 2.4 per cent in 2024, with U.S. growth estimated at just 0.8 per cent, down from 2.4 per […]
The “most widely anticipated recession in history” could arrive in 2024, said Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management, during the keynote session at the Canadian Investment Review’s 2023 Defined Benefit Investment Forum in December. “This is still an environment in which higher rates are exerting quite a profound drag on economic growth, […]
More than two-fifths (45 per cent) of U.S. defined contribution pension plan sponsors say they’re considering implementing emergency savings features, according to a survey from MFS Investment Management. The survey, which polled 1,000 DC plan members and more than 140 plan sponsors, found nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of plan sponsors said they’d take […]
The Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System is considering the sale of LifeLabs Inc., according to a report by The Globe and Mail. A spokesperson for the infrastructure arm of the OMERS said the investment organization has held preliminary negotiation talks with “multiple potential buyers” but is currently not in any late-stage discussions. The report said […]