Blake Hutcheson Kicks Off Season 2 of OMERS' Pension Blueprint Podcast
OMERS is excited to announce the launch of season two of its podcast series, The Pension Blueprint.
This innovative and thought-provoking series features an exciting lineup of guests – both internal and external experts who explore what longer lifespans mean for each generation. This season discusses the possibility of a 100-year life and what this means for Canadians and their retirement. The expertise and insights into the pension world are informative and inspiring, providing listeners with valuable advice and knowledge.
“Our aim with The Pension Blueprint is to demystify the world of pensions and retirement planning for our members and all Canadians. Our objective is to provide clear, relevant and accessible information,” said OMERS Chief Pension Officer Celine Chiovitti. “We hope that through this series, listeners feel more informed and confident about their retirement-planning decisions.”
The podcast will also include insights on how OMERS approaches investment performance with a long-term mindset to ensure that members’ pensions are safe, secure and sustainable – now and in the future. The first episode of season two released today includes OMERS President and CEO Blake Hutcheson speaking with Chiovitti about OMERS ongoing commitment to invest in Canada.
The series will discuss the critical issue of the gender pension gap and what women can do to improve their retirement security. A special panel will also address the issue of mental health for first responders and treatment of post-traumatic stress injury (PTSI) for this community.
“We believe that knowledge is power, and through this podcast, we aim to empower our members to make well-informed decisions about their future,” said Chiovitti. “This is a moment in time when the concept of retirement is radically changing, and we have thoughtfully designed this season to address a broad range of issues and opportunities so that our members and others can make more of their retirement.”
OMERS was one of the first major Canadian pension plans to launch a podcast to connect with members. The Pension Blueprint is the only dedicated defined benefit pension podcast available on widely accessible Canadian channels, including Spotify and Apple. The Pension Blueprint is the top podcast search result for “pension” on Spotify Canada.
For more information about The Pension Blueprint and to find every episode from season one, visit here.
Media contact:
Don Peat
media@omers.comAbout OMERS
OMERS is a jointly sponsored, defined benefit pension plan, with 1,000 participating employers ranging from large cities to local agencies, and over 600,000 active, deferred and retired members. Our members include union and non-union employees of municipalities, school boards, local boards, transit systems, electrical utilities, emergency services and children’s aid societies across Ontario. OMERS teams work in Toronto, London, New York, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Singapore, Sydney and other major cities across North America and Europe – serving members and employers, and originating and managing a diversified portfolio of high-quality investments in bonds, public and private credit, public and private equity, infrastructure and real estate.
Alright, it's Monday, and I'm discussing season 2 of OMERS' The Pension Blueprint Podcast because it kicks off this year with an interview featuring CEO Blake Hutcheson.
Blake is a great communicator and it's always worth listening to his views, especially if you're a grumpy old pension personality like me (he'll cheer you up!).
Let me begin by commending the podcast's host Celine Chiovitti, Chief Pension Officer at OMERS, for putting this podcast together.
I know it's not easy and requires time and effort on top of her day job but it really bolsters the communication aspect of the plan and I'm certain members truly appreciate it.
In fact, I think all of Canada's large pension plans/ funds should attempt to launch a similar podcast.
In my opinion, even though it's not easy to keep it relevant and worthwhile, if done properly, it significantly bolsters the communication at these plans and I would mix it up with heads of investing and other heads (risk, finance, etc.) as well as external people.
Anyways, you can watch the latest episodes of The Pension Blueprint here.
My only comment to Celine and OMERS is to post these episodes on their dedicated OMERS YouTube channel so I can easily embed them on my blog (or make the embed code on each clip publicly available on your site).
The transcript of Episode 1: "Investing in your pension future" featuring Blake Hutcheson is available here.
I note the following:
Celine Chiovitti: So I'm going to, my final question to you if you want to go there is, let's talk a little bit about 2030. And I know you've been thinking about and putting together our OMERS 2030 strategy. Do you want to share a little bit about that today?
Blake Hutcheson: I'm happy to although we haven't had this strategy approved by the Boards, as of yet, so it's a little premature to get into detail. But I'm happy to share the overarching five points which characterize the strategy for 2030, which I think are five points that can resonate with most people. And as you know, what our OMERS strategy is, is we do a detailed strategy usually every five years.
It's often hundreds of pages. It's a deep dive on our investment portfolio, on your area of the business, on everybody that supports those areas of the business. So it's a big document, it's very thoughtful and it has a lot of math, a lot of science, and it really tells us where we're headed. But very, I'll say superficially in the interim, remember one, two, three, four, five.
One means we will be a 100% plus funded between now and 2030. Today we're about 97% funded, as you know, which is about 10% better than it was 10 years ago. So we've taken the funded status from I think low 84% to about 97% in the last 10 or 11 years. And the trajectory is terrific. So the first thing, first plan is to make sure we're 100% funded by 2030.
The second is today we have $130 billion of our own assets. That will be $200 billion between now and 2030. With reasonable growth and a reasonable economy, we can see building the 130 to a $200 billion equity portfolio for our members. So that's a 65% growth, which is significant. And what it means to our employees, as you know, we have about 3,000 employees, is they're part of something that's going to grow almost 65% in the next five or six years as we continue to diversify, continue to invest, and continue to try to find ways to unlock value for the pensioners.
Three is three continents. We're really focused on three continents and there are 200 countries in the world. We can't even think about that kind of diversification. We have to be great at what we do. So we focused on about 12 countries in three continents and actually within those countries, specific cities, specific disciplines where we know we can compete with the best of the best. So we'll be very active and very strategic in those various countries. And three continents. And people ask, what are the three continents we're focused on? It's, of course, North America, so Canada and the US. It's Europe, and then we call it our Asia-Pac region. We have an office in Singapore, we have an office in Sydney, and it's primarily India and Australia directly and that region through equities and investments of that nature. So it's North America, it's Europe and Asia-Pac.
Four stands for $400 billion of assets under management. So if we have $200 billion of equity, we layer on some debt because some of our portfolio is leveraged and plus we manage a lot of third party capital for others. Oxford, for example, has, I think over $40 billion of other people's money, which they manage on their behalf. And actually when I do the numbers that $400 billion could be a lot closer to a half a trillion. So we're going to be, we OMERS, almost a half a trillion dollar enterprise between now and 2030, which again gives people a lot of reason to wake up in the morning knowing they're part of something that's so significant. And that collectively with that responsibility, we can take and just do that much better for our members.
And five is, we call it a 5% real return. When we achieve a 5% real return, the actual funded status could be closer to 107%. And the difference between real and nominal returns is a nominal return, as I said, the last three years we've had an 8% return. Some of that's inflation. So nominal takes into consideration inflation, real takes out inflation. So we can do as well as we have in the last three years, for example, we think we'll be 107% funded somewhere in that neighborhood.
So, one, two, three, four, five.
So 100% funded, $200 billion of assets, dominant in three continents, over $400 billion of AUM, and our five yield will make sure we have a big cushion in our funded status. I think it's something to be excited about. It will not come easily, but with the team we've assembled and the energy we have and the confidence we have in the future of this organization, I think we'll get there.
Celine Chiovitti: I'm confident we'll get there, one, two, three, four, five.
Blake Hutcheson: That'll give you a quick snapshot as to what we're dreaming about for 2030 on behalf of our 620,000 members.
Again, take the time to watch the entire interview here.
The second episode features an excellent interview with Dr. James Aw, Chief Medical Officer at OMERS discussing what the prospect of living to be 100 years old mean for your health, lifestyle, family and finances (watch that too).
Below, I embedded Blake's Empire Club of Canada address going over the story of OMERS once again as I liked it and think it's also well worth watching along with his podcast interview which I cannot embed below (please make embed code publicly available).
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