Pension Pulse

Gill Wadsworth of ESG Investor recently interviewed Jennifer Coulson, Senior Managing Director, ESG at BCI, who explains how an asset owner-led platform is making SDGs more investable: Last month UN Secretary General António Guterres issued a stark warning: “As the world faces cascading and interlinked global crises and conflicts, the aspirations set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are in jeopardy.” In the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 , Guterres says a disastrous combination of the Covid-19 pandemic entering its third year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with its associated impacts on the food, energy, humanitarian and refugee crises, and a “fully-fledged climate emergency” mean “we need an urgent rescue effort for the [17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)] ”. “Greater investment in data infrastructure is needed to efficiently target investments now, anticipate future demands, avoid crises from descending into full-blown conflict and plan ...

Michael Graham, Global Head of OMERS Private Equity posted a message updating members on their activities: There are many things top of mind as we navigate through what is now a markedly different world than just a few months ago. Global markets (debt and equity) are in flux, with inflation in many countries at record highs and a potential recession causing uncertainty. Debt is more expensive and there are fewer capital sources lending than last with the syndicated loan market largely closed. Overall, these factors are causing (necessary) cooling in the PE industry. There is a growing reluctance by many of our peers to “spend up” or to deploy new capital at all in the last half of 2022. On the positive side, our portfolio continues to perform well, with most companies showing strong growth in 2022 . And many PE funds still have high levels of dry powder, but they are cautious on valuations and assets that aren’t traditionally recession resilient and are looking for “supe...

Joseph Rai of mint reports Ontario Teachers' to pick up stake in Sahyadri Hospitals from Everstone: The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board said it has agreed to acquire a significant majority stake in Sahyadri Hospitals chain from the Everstone Group is the Canada-based investor’s first control private equity buyout in India. Everstone and Sahyadri Hospitals’ key management and founders will continue to retain minority stakes in the healthcare firm, said Ontario Teachers’ in a statement without disclosing the financial details of the transaction. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of this year, it added. VCCircle reported in August last year had reported that Everstone had initiated the process to exit Sahyadri Hospitals just a little over two years after its investment in the company. Everstone had agreed to acquire a controlling stake in Sahyadri in April 2019. The transaction was concluded later in the year. Founded b...

In July, Richard Manley, Managing Director, Head of Sustainable Investing, Global Leadership Team, CPP Investments wrote a comment on why committing to net zero is like running a two-hour-marathon: I have committed to running a sub-2-hour marathon by 2025, after all, it has been proven humanly possible. You don’t believe I can do it? Would you be more likely to believe me if I shared my fastest time to date? This decision is not a midlife crisis, just my desire to embrace the ambition of the now thousands of CEOs who have committed to remove 100% of the greenhouse gas emissions from their businesses in the next 28 years. There is, however, one important difference between these two commitments; while a human (not me) has run a marathon distance in under two hours, I am not aware of any companies that have removed 100% of greenhouse gas emissions from their operations, although some have attained carbon neutrality via offsets. Whether I deliver on this comm...

David Milstead of the Globe and Mail reports OMERS posts small loss in first half of 2022 despite turmoil in stock and bond markets: The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, or OMERS, said it posted a loss of 0.4 per cent, or about $500-million, in the first six months of 2022 despite the turmoil in stock and bond markets. Royal Bank of Canada’s RBC I&TS All Plan Universe saw defined benefit pension plan assets – as measured by a typical mix of publicly held stocks and bonds – shrink 14.7 per cent over that period. Blake Hutcheson, OMERS chief executive, said in an interview that the pension has been moving away from public equities over time to buy more private assets. In rapidly rising markets, pension funds with significant private assets can trail the broader stock indexes. On the downside, however, the pension funds can outperform. “Our strategy has played into our hand in terms of preserving and protecting our portfolio,” Mr. Hutcheson said. OMERS is ...