Pension Pulse

Steve Randall of Wealth Professional reports  Canadian retirement system scores B as aging crisis reshapes global pension outlook:  Canada maintained a B grade in the newly released 2026 Marsh CFA Institute Global Pension Index, but the annual benchmark sounded an increasingly urgent warning about the long-term pressures aging populations are placing on retirement income systems. The 18th annual index, produced by Marsh (NYSE: MRSH) and CFA Institute in collaboration with the Monash Centre for Financial Studies in Melbourne, Australia, benchmarks 55 retirement income systems across the globe - covering approximately 66% of the world's population - on three sub-indices: adequacy, sustainability, and integrity. Canada scored 70.6 overall in 2026, up marginally from 70.4 in 2025, with sub-index scores of 67.1 for adequacy, 66.6 for sustainability, and 81.7 for integrity. Canada's integrity score - among the strong...

Today, BCI's real estate subsidiary issued a press release stating, "Rooted in Canada, Built for the World: A decade of global expansion at QuadReal": From a predominantly Canadian portfolio to a global business in just 10 years, QuadReal has combined local expertise with a vertically integrated operating model to diversify its investments and build for the long-term. From its inception, QuadReal’s ambition was to build on its Canadian foundation to create a globally balanced portfolio. Remco Daal, Chief Operating Officer, says “it was always the vision to get us closer to 50-50” when asked about the mix of international and domestic investments.  The opportunity was to take what QuadReal knew from the Canadian landscape and build on it. Ten years into QuadReal’s history, that ambition has shaped both where the company invests and how it operates.   What began with a predominantly Canadian portfolio has grown into one of the world’s top 15 real estate investors, ...

Paula Sambo and Layan Odeh of Bloomberg report Credit boss at top Canada pension warns of ‘bubble-like’ AI rush: The credit chief for Canada’s largest pension sees signs of “bubble-like” exuberance in the rush to finance AI, cautioning that investors should scrutinize their exposure to the nascent technology.  “You cannot wake up one day and just say, ‘Well, we just had this theme that AI was great, and we woke up and it was 25% of our portfolio,’” Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s global head of credit investments, David Colla, said in an interview. Canada’s top pension plan, which oversees C$863.6 billion ($617.6 billion), continues to finance AI-tied projects, including those involving CoreWeave Inc., the largest of the so-called neoclouds that lease out AI chips. But the pension, whose AI investments make up about 3.5% of its credit portfolio, is becoming increasingly selective about such bets.  “There will be winners and losers along the way,” Colla said. “And t...

James Bradshaw of The Globe and Mail reports  Blackstone, Canadian pension funds invest $3.1-billion for LNG Canada stake: Blackstone Inc. and four major Canadian pension funds are paying US$3.1-billion to buy a minority stake in a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary that owns a share of LNG Canada’s liquefaction business. Mitsubishi owns a 15-per-cent stake in LNG Canada through a subsidiary and will stay the controlling partner of that entity. The investor group is acquiring a 49.9-per-cent non-controlling interest in the Mitsubishi subsidiary, or roughly half of Mitsubishi’s stake. Blackstone is leading the investor group that includes Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, Investment Management Corp. of Ontario and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. LNG Canada operates the country’s first natural-gas export terminal, an $18-billion facility in Kitimat, B.C., that opened in June, 2025. Under the deal announced Monday, Mitsubish...

Grace O'Donnell , David Hollerith and Ines Ferré of Yahoo Finance report the Nasdaq, Dow, S&P 500 clobbered as October closes with brutal sell-off: US stocks plunged in the final trading day of the month as earnings from Amazon ( AMZN ) and Alphabet ( GOOG , GOOGL ) this week rekindled concerns about the amount of money Big Tech is spending on its AI ambitions. The Nasdaq Composite ( ^IXIC ) tumbled 2.8% as a tech-fueled sell-off intensified. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ( ^DJI ) fell 1.2%, or over 650 points, while the S&P 500 ( ^GSPC ) dropped 2%. For the month, the Dow gained 1.5%, while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 gave up gains, falling 5.2% and 1.2%, respectively. October marked the worst month for the Nasdaq since March 2025. Stocks fell for the second day in a row after Amazon and Alphabet posted rare earnings misses , renewing concerns about the sustainability of the AI boom. Amazon shares fell 2%, while Alphabet continued to erase market valu...