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 […]
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 […]
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 British Columbia Investment Management Corp. is aligning itself with other global pension investors by signing a new joint letter calling for long-term sustainability to become a more prevalent concern for corporations and asset managers. The letter was co-signed in early March by three institutional investors — Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund, the California State Teachers’ Retirement Scheme and […]
The world may be more digital than ever, but a physical presence can still sometimes make the difference between success and failure for pension plans For the OPSEU Pension Trust, establishing offices abroad was a logical step. Its private markets group, which is based in Toronto, was undertaking a lot of global investment activity, so […]
Despite the key differences between sovereign wealth funds and public pension plans, the two institutional investors are quite similar in that they’re large, state-owned, sophisticated pools of capital. However, on average, the two types of organizations approach their real estate investments differently, according to a new paper by McKay Price, Collins-Goodman chair in real estate […]
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is appointing Judy Wade as managing director and head of the San Francisco offices it set up in August 2019. In her new role, Wade will lead the CPPIB’s expansion into the Bay Area, furthering its presence in the U.S. In addition, Adam Grosser will join Wade in the San Francisco […]
If climate change represents one of the largest systemic risks the global economy has ever faced, dealing with its ramifications is going to move a lot of money. The world’s youth have taken to the streets calling on their governments for massive, co-ordinated policy change, but it hasn’t yet manifested. Any piecemeal regulatory shifts suffer […]
The majority (79 per cent) of pension fund and private equity professionals expect their passive private equity allocations to either stay the same or increase in 2020, according to a new survey by Torys LLP. Pension funds, in particular, cited competition for new investment opportunities (65 per cent) and pressure from limited partners to provide co-investment […]
Pension funds view geopolitical risk as the top risk to the financial system, followed by economic risk and climate risk, according to the Global Risk Institute in Financial Services’ annual risk outlook survey for 2019-2020. While the survey wasn’t technically broken down by pension plans versus other institutional investors, Sonia Baxendale, chief executive officer of […]