Pension Pulse

Freschia Gonzalez of Benefits and Pensions Monitor reports OPTrust marks 30 years with 17th straight fully funded result: Seventeen years of full funding and three decades in operation put OPTrust in a small club of Canadian defined benefit plans that have delivered on their promises through multiple market cycles.  OPTrust’s 2025 Funded Status Report, Service & Security – Since 1995, confirms the OPSEU Pension Plan remained fully funded for the 17th consecutive year. On a funding basis at 31 December 2025, the Plan reported an actuarial value of assets of $27.9bn against liabilities of $27.7bn, for a surplus of $199m.  ...

James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reports  HOOPP rides stocks to 7.7% gain as market turbulence weighs on private assets: The Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan leaned heavily on strong stock markets to report a 7.7-per-cent investment gain last year, even as returns from private markets were sluggish against a turbulent economic backdrop. HOOPP’s one-year results trailed the benchmark return that the plan uses to measure its performance, which was 8.6 per cent. That relative underperformance was partly attributed to challenges with two specific investments – one in infrastructure and another in private credit. But a 22.2-per-cent return from HOOPP’s portfolio of publicly traded stocks, which it bulked up last year after U.S. President Donald Trump announced broad and punitive tariffs, kept the plan’s investment gains near their longer-term average. Over 10 years, HOOPP’s average annual return was 7.8 per cent. Net assets increased to $132-billion last year, from $...