The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board are investing in WSP Global Inc., an engineering and design services firm, through a private placement of common shares. The Caisse is set to buy about $44 million of common shares in aggregate, while a subsidiary of the CPPIB is purchasing about […]
The Investment Management Corp. of Ontario is appointing Nick Chamie as chief strategist to lead the organization’s asset allocation, currency management and fixed income strategies within the total portfolio and capital markets group. With more than 25 years of experience in portfolio management, trading and research, Chamie was most recently a senior portfolio manager at […]
The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System is closing its previously announced investment in fibre technology company Deutsche Glasfaser Holding. The German company is a provider of gigabit internet connections through fibre-to-the-home to more than 700,000 households and 5,000 businesses across the country. The investment, alongside partner EQT Infrastructure Fund IV, was announced in February 2020. […]
Even before the coronavirus began affecting capital markets, fixed income investors were becoming more risk averse, according to Invesco’s latest survey. Close to half (43 per cent) of investors surveyed in late 2019 said they felt the then economic cycle had a year or less left to run and were adapting their portfolios accordingly. In some cases, this change […]
Will real estate help Canadian pension plans weather the coronavirus pandemic or will being a landlord prove to be a liability in an economic crisis? For several years, Canadian pension plans have been broadening the regional scope of their real estate holdings, diversifying portfolios in asset classes and geographic exposures. But with the coronavirus pandemic […]
Last August, I wrote about whether central banks were creating a financial bubble with their coordinated easing programs intended to spur economic growth and/or lift inflation. In January 2020, I wrote about the end of the economic cycle, the potential for a recession and what that might mean for positioning an investment portfolio. Little did I […]
Canadian defined benefit plans saw a median return of negative 7.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, after enduring a historic period of market volatility and economic turmoil resulting from the global pandemic crisis, according to both the Northern Trust Canada universe and the RBC Investor and Treasury Services universe. Northern Trust Canada […]
Global institutional investors say they intend to gently reduce their average new capital commitments to real estate in 2020. According to a new report by Institutional Real Estate Inc. and Kingsley Associates, survey respondents said they’re reducing their new spend by an average of 11 per cent this year. Notably, the survey was conducted between Nov. 12, […]
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, alongside Dutch pension fund ASG and asset manager ESR Cayman Ltd., has entered into a new strategic agreement to establish a new development joint venture in South Korea with a total equity allocation of US$1 billion. The joint venture, ESR-KS II, will invest in and develop an industrial and […]
It’s no surprise that Canadian pension funds had a rough first quarter of 2020 and the latest data from Morneau Shepell Ltd.’s universe of pension managers’ pooled funds confirms just that. During the quarter, diversified pooled fund managers saw a median return of negative 10 per cent before management fees, which was 0.9 per cent […]