As Ontario inches closer to launching its mandatory pension program, the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, the pension industry remains polarized about the plan’s impact on employers and employees and its fate in the event of an expansion of the Canada Pension Plan. “One of the great benefits the government has shown in the ORPP is […]
While proponents are expressing concern about the absence of any mention of target-benefit pension plans in the recent federal budget, the omission doesn’t mean Ottawa has lost interest in the issue, according to the Department of Finance. “The development of a [target-benefit plan] framework for Crown corporations and federally regulated private sector pension plans remains a priority for the […]
Pension fund returns 13% during tough year
Despite low interest rates, slow global growth and sliding commodity prices, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (Teachers’) saw its investment return increase in 2015 – a year when Canada’s other top pension funds experienced declines in their investment returns. The pension fund’s infrastructure and real estate assets were some of the best performers, so the […]
The federal government will seek additional funding from Canada’s pension funds as it looks to invest more than $120 billion in infrastructure over the next decade. In its bid to shore up the country’s infrastructure, the government plans to “engage public pension plans and other innovative sources of funding,” the budget noted. In its response […]
The pension industry will be watching to see if the Liberal government makes good on its promise to invest in Canada’s infrastructure when it unveils its first budget on Tuesday. The Liberal government has been in talks with Canada’s largest pension funds about investing in infrastructure projects to help stimulate the economy, according to a […]
Five years ago, Mats Andersson had an epiphany. The CEO of the Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund, known as AP4, was travelling to meet with other pension executives. He asked them about the biggest risks their investment portfolios were facing and got detailed, sensible answers in each case. “Then I asked them, ‘What’s your exposure […]
In hindsight, everybody would have invested in Apple back when it was a smaller, obscure private company. But as its founder Steve Jobs famously once said in a different context: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” So for investors who can stomach the risk, private companies valued […]
The United Steelworkers union was in court once again Thursday in a bid to boost the claims of pensioners amid the ongoing restructuring of U.S. Steel Canada. During the March 17 court hearing in Toronto, Gordon Capern, a lawyer representing the United Steelworkers, accused U.S. Steel of “oppressive conduct and breach of fiduciary duties” towards the […]
Like other large defined benefit pension funds in Canada, OPTrust, which manages the OPSEU Pension Plan, saw its 2015 investment return slide amid low interest rates, volatile equity markets and declining commodity prices. However, Ontario’s fifth largest public pension plan remained fully-funded. In 2015, OPTrust’s net-of-fee investment return shrank to 8%. That compares with 12% […]