Pension Pulse

Paul Vieira of the Wall Street Journal reports  Blackstone and La Caisse will buy 25% of Air Canada's Aeroplan loyalty program: Asset manager Blackstone and Quebec's La Caisse pension fund have agreed to acquire a 25% stake in Air Canada's loyalty-points program for nearly US$2 billion, which the airline said would help reduce debt and take steps toward obtaining an investment-grade rating. Blackstone, meanwhile, said the deal is a sign of the asset manager's confidence in Canada as a place to do business. Montreal-based Air Canada, the nation's largest airline, said the proceeds would help repay an upcoming billion-dollar bond maturity and reduce debt. Air Canada said the transaction values its Aeroplan points program at 10 billion Canadian dollars (US$7.2 billion). Blackstone and La Caisse are leading a consortium that also includes two other Canadian pension plans: PSP Investment and the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation. M...

Layan Odey of Bloomberg reports OMERS returns 4.8% in first half, fuelled by stocks and US dollar: Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System returned 4.8 per cent in the first half of the year, gaining $6.9 billion from a strong United States dollar and rising stock market. The pension “had a pleasing start to 2026” despite “an increasingly complex global dynamic,” chief executive Blake Hutcheson said in a statement Tuesday. Net assets rose to $151.6 billion as of June 30. Every asset class delivered positive returns, with stocks and private credit advancing 12.2 per cent and 7.8 per cent, respectively. Private equity holdings eked out a 1.1 per cent gain, held back by “market headwinds,” according to the statement.  Currency appreciation, particularly of the U.S. dollar, added a net 1.4 per cent to returns. The Toronto-based pension plan invested $1 billion into Canadian equities in the first half of the year and plans to add at least $10 billion of investments i...