Pension Pulse

HOOPP's Ivana Zanardo (Head of Plan Services) and Jennifer Rook (Vice President of Strategy, Global Intelligence and Advocacy) wrote a position paper on the health impacts of the gender pension gap: Women in the workforce have made significant strides in recent decades: the gender wage gap is shrinking, women hold a growing share of senior leadership positions at Canadian companies and are more likely than men to be covered by a registered pension plan through their workplace 1 . These are important developments worth celebrating, but there is some nuance missing. Even as the wage gap narrows, women in Canada still face an annual income gap of 29 per cent 2 – that does not account for race, disability, age or a myriad of other factors which can exacerbate the gap for many women. And while we are encouraged to see more women in leadership at Canadian companies, only about 24 per cent of these positions are held by women 3 . Although more women than men are covered ...

Byron Kaye and Christine Chen of Reuters report Canada's biggest pension fund calls for economic diversification as tariffs hit: Canada must diversify its economy and position itself as more competitive on the global stage if tariffs promised by U.S. President Donald Trump take effect, Canada's biggest pension fund said on Tuesday.   Edwin Cass, chief investment officer of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, said his country's economy was "tied at the hip" to the U.S. after Trump said on Monday 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico would go into effect almost immediately.   "One of the things we obviously should have been doing in the past, and I think you'll see going forward, is that we'll try and diversify our economy a lot more and we'll try and do some things to make it more competitive on the world stage," Cass told the Australian Financial Review Business Summit in Sydney.   Canada's federal and provincial governments ...

The Canadian Press reports Welltower buying Amica from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan for $4.6 billion: U.S. company Welltower Inc. has signed a deal to buy Amica Senior Lifestyles from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan for $4.6 billion. The deal includes 31 seniors residences and seven under construction. As part of the transaction, Welltower will also acquire a minority interest in Amica’s management company with the Amica management team owning the majority interest. Welltower CEO Shankh Mitra says the deal comes against a backdrop of rapidly growing demand and limited new supply for seniors residences. Ontario Teachers’ first invested in Amica in 2010 and took the company private in a deal with management in 2015. The deal with Welltower is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025, subject to customary regulatory approvals. This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2025. Reuters also reports Welltower to buy Amica portfolio from Ontario Teachers’ ...

Amanda White of Top1000funds reports OMERS positions to buy, favouring North America: Only two years into the top investment job at OMERS, Ralph Berg has made his mark, dramatically re-engineering the investment programs, adjusting the geographical focus and getting ready to buy as M&A markets open up. Amanda White reports. Ralph Berg, chief investment officer at OMERS for nearly two years, brings a fresh perspective to pension fund management with a history and work pedigree different to what you might expect from a Canadian fund investment boss. He was born in the United States to German parents and grew up in Argentina, and while he works for a Canadian fund he lives in London. An economist and lawyer by training, he describes himself as “essentially an M&A banker”. And he’s used that vast and varied experience to revamp the C$138.2 billion ($97.2 billion) fund’s approach to investing. After nearly 20 years in investment banking, at Deutsche Bank and then Cred...

Jacob Serebrin of the Montreal Gazette reports the Caisse posts 9.4% return for 2024, sees economic uncertainty ahead: The CEO of Quebec’s public pension fund manager said he is counting on its diverse portfolio to help it navigate increasing economic uncertainty as he announced investment returns of nearly $40 billion in 2024. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec reported a 9.4-per-cent return on its investments in 2024 on Wednesday, which it credited to surging tech stocks in the United States but which was held back by losses in its real-estate portfolio.  While the return was up from the 7.2-per-cent return the CDPQ posted in 2023, it lagged the fund manager’s benchmark portfolio — a similar basket of investments it uses to measure performance — which had a return of 11.8 per cent. Charles Emond, the president and CEO of the CDPQ, said that while he expects turbulence and volatility in the near future, the past five years have also been marked by instabili...