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DeFi poses technological, regulatory challenges for institutional investors: expert

While blockchain-based decentralized finance technology has a lot to offer institutional investors, taking full advantage of these tools will require significant technological and regulatory hurdles to be overcome, says Andreas Park, professor of finance at the Rotman School of Management. “There’s lots of cool things you can do in the DeFi space. There’re genuinely new […]

  • January 27, 2022 January 27, 2022
  • 11:45

Association ending efforts to oppose N.B. pension’s move away from DB model

An eight-year legal effort to reverse a law that transformed New Brunswick’s public sector pension plan away from an indexed defined benefits model is being scrapped. Pension Coalition NB, an association that represents 13,000 public sector retirees in the province, will end its legal efforts to oppose a 2013 bill that transformed N.B.’s public sector pensions […]

  • January 25, 2022 January 25, 2022
  • 12:30

PIAC to focus on growing membership in 2022, says new board member

The Pension Investment Association of Canada board is prioritizing a return to business as usual and the expansion of the association’s membership in 2022. The board will continue efforts to expand the PIAC’s membership and increase the engagement of existing members, says Cheryl Shea, manager of pension assets at Canadian Pacific Railway Co. and a recently […]

  • January 18, 2022 January 17, 2022
  • 09:00

Green urban real estate investing pays off for pension funds: expert

Canadian pension funds are generating value by investing in green urban real estate using a two-pronged strategy, according to a paper on the Social Science Research Network. “Through this model of impact investing, Canadian pension funds create the value from the ground up and drive the sustainable development of large cities,” wrote authors Sebastien Betermier, […]

  • January 13, 2022 January 13, 2022
  • 13:30

Fiscal sustainability of DB pensions more important than overall liabilities: report

The viability of a public defined benefit pension plan is best judged by its fiscal sustainability rather than its overall liabilities, according to a new report by the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems. The report, written by Michael Kahn, director of research at the NCPERS (pictured right), found fiscally sustainable pension plans have […]

  • January 6, 2022 January 6, 2022
  • 12:00

Majority of Canadian DB pension solvency ratios above 100 per cent: report

The average solvency ratio of Canadian defined benefit pension plans in Mercer’s database grew by seven per cent in 2021, according to a new report by the consultancy. The report, which looked at the overall performance of more than 500 Canadian DB plans in 2021, found, at the end of the year, the plans’ average […]

  • January 4, 2022 January 4, 2022
  • 13:30

Pension charity criticizing CPPIB’s new environmental investing strategy

A Canadian charitable initiative is criticizing the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s new environmental investing strategy. “It’s encouraging to see that the CPPIB wants to invest in critical decarbonization pathways for hard-to-abate sectors,” wrote Patrick DeRochie (pictured), senior manager at Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, in an email to the Canadian Investment Review. “But the CPP […]

  • December 21, 2021 December 21, 2021
  • 10:00

2021 IIC coverage: Considerations for pension plan sponsors in a post-pandemic political climate

However long the social, political and economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic may last, humanity and its economic systems have weathered the storm exceptionally well, said David Frum, a political commentator and senior editor at The Atlantic, during the keynote address at the Canadian Investment Review‘s 2021 Investment Innovation Conference. “We just put the entire world […]

  • December 21, 2021 December 17, 2021
  • 07:59

2021 IIC coverage: Maximizing the certainty of an outcome — it isn’t just death and taxes

With many defined benefit pension plan solvency ratios at all-time highs, plan sponsors have an excellent opportunity to rethink their approach to investing, according to Shivin Kwatra, head of liability-driven investing portfolio management at Insight Investments. “It is important to highlight two approaches to investing: one [is] traditional — a mean variance framework of maximizing […]

  • December 21, 2021 December 17, 2021
  • 07:57

2021 IIC coverage: Turning theory into action in impact investing

Investing is undergoing a paradigm shift, which will see investors do well by doing good, according to John Levy, director of impact at Franklin Templeton Investments. “Traditional investing is agnostic about its role on the planet, local communities and society. At some point, something like what we now call sustainable investing came along,” he said during […]

  • December 21, 2021 December 17, 2021
  • 07:55