Pension Pulse

James Bradshaw of the Globe and Mail reports Ontario public sector pension plan IMCO posted 8.1% loss in 2022: Investment Management Corporation of Ontario reported an average loss of 8.1 per cent on its investments in 2022 as the pension fund investor’s exposure to plunging values in public stock and bond markets punched a hole in its annual returns. With inflation running at its highest levels in decades, a combination of steep losses on a broad array of public equities and fixed-income investments – which suffered a rare simultaneous decline last year – battered returns for core portfolios at many pension plans. That made for “a challenging year to say the least,” said IMCO chief executive officer Bert Clark. Assets under management at IMCO fell to $73.3-billion as of Dec. 31, from $79-billion a year earlier. IMCO, which invests on behalf of a number of pension plans for public-sector employees in Ontario, was more exposed to the public-market declines than many of its...

Sarah Rundell of top1000funds reports CDPQ’s real estate arm Ivanhoé Cambridge talks agility and evolution: In the last few years, Ivanhoé Cambridge, the $70 billion real estate subsidiary of $283 billion Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec (CDPQ) has turned its portfolio on its head. Five years ago, two thirds of the allocation was invested in return-dragging office and retail assets. Now, in a complete reversal, two thirds is invested in logistics and residential real estate alongside a growing allocation to alternative life sciences facilities and office and retail assets are in the minority. “Over the last few years, we have pivoted the portfolio to make sure we are aligned with longer term trends,” says Michèle Hubert, chief operating officer at Ivanhoé Cambridge in an interview with Top1000funds.com. The intensive churn of transactions as assets with less potential or that had reached maturity were sold and money redeployed to growth areas required a keen invest...

Sarah Mundell of top1000funds interviewed OPTrust CEO Peter Lindley on why liquidity is central to risk management: As Silicon Valley Bank has just discovered – and UK pension funds were sharply reminded last year – every financial crisis is essentially a liquidity crisis. It’s why Peter Lindley, president and chief executive of $25 billion OPTrust, one of Canada’s largest defined benefit pension plans, puts liquidity management front and centre. “Liquidity is everything and we are very liquidity aware and build it into our investment planning,” he says, speaking on the eve of OPTrust reporting a small net investment loss of -2.2 per cent in 2022 alongside being fully funded for the 14 th consecutive year. Moreover, liquidity is fundamental to resilience  which, when assets suddenly correlate like in 2022, can be even more important than diversification. “Resilience involves understanding all the risks in the portfolio, including liquidity. You can’t be resilient if yo...