Jeff Wendling the President and CEO of the Ontario Pension Plan is retiring.

The International Centre for Pension Management, a global network of pension funds, announced on Friday that it is celebrating 20 years since its founding.

An increase in the frequency of digital breaches among financial organizations is pushing institutional investors to take the necessary steps to prevent cyberattacks, says Sebastien Betermier, executive director at the International Centre for Pension Management.

At the start of the century, Barclays Global Investors launched a weird little fund in Canada, a backwater of global finance. Today, its myriad offspring are rewiring swaths of the $130tn bond market.

Should Canada’s large pension funds follow the path of Quebec’s Caisse de dépôt et placement and demonstrate a greater home bias, or national preference, in their investments?

Rachel reeves, Britain’s new chancellor, says that she has inherited the worst fiscal circumstances since the second world war. An exaggeration, perhaps, but only a small one. To address the squeeze, Ms Reeves will seek the help of Britain’s retirement savings. On July 8th she said that she wants the country’s pension funds “to drive investment in homegrown businesses and deliver greater returns to pension savers”.

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Faut-il que les grands fonds de retraite canadiens, un peu à la manière de la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, démontrent une plus grande préférence nationale dans leurs placements ?

Canadian lawmakers and business leaders criticize the country’s pension funds for not investing more domestically, but doing so could introduce risks, a new paper states.

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Canada's largest bank has reversed course on a policy to disclose how much it invests in green energy versus fossil fuel energy following demands from New York City's large public pension funds, with environmental groups welcoming the move but pointing out it doesn't actually reduce carbon emissions yet.

Signals that Ottawa wants more domestic investment from Canadian public pension funds are being amplified by some members of the business community who argue there’s more these large pools of capital can do to boost Canada’s economy.

What is the key to investing success for allocators? A research paper sketched out four case studies to illuminate how Canadian pension plans deploy capital to supercharge their investments.

There has been much discussion in the pension community about whether or not Alberta’s plan to create its own provincial pension scheme is a sound idea and how it might impact the rest of the country and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).

Canadian pension funds have earned acclaim for their adept use of partnerships, resulting in higher returns and lower fees — a style of investing now recognized as the Maple 8 Canadian Investment Model.

Canadian pension plans are masterful at leveraging partnerships to ink higher returns and lower fees — so much so that their style of investing has its own name.

With imaginative solutions and clearly defined standards, new models of sustainable finance are driving a virtuous circle of green impact and enterprise value.

Higher interest rates one of the factors behind pension funds reducing their exposure

This article provides twelve observations about the Big Nine, how they are organized, how they invest, and suggests what practices should and should not be adopted by individual investors.

CBC News answers questions about how the Canada Pension Plan works and what Alberta could do

BPM turns lens on Canada's top five pensions plans by assets under management

Ninety-six teams from 21 countries took part in the 2022 McGill International Portfolio Challenge

Ontario Teachers was an early booster of corporate governance, the pension fund will write its $95 million investment to zero

Un grand nombre de ménages concentrent la majorité de leur capacité d’investissement dans un seul actif : un bien immobilier.

People on fixed incomes hardest hit by inflation, seniors' rights advocacy group says

The International Centre for Pension Management, a global organization that connects pension leaders across over 40 funds for networking purposes, has appointed Sebastien Betermier as its new executive director.

International Centre for Pension Management (ICPM) – Rob Bauer, professor at the University of Maastricht, wll be stepping down as executive director of ICPM at the end of 2022 and will be succeeded by Sebastien Betermier.

The International Centre for Pension Management is appointing Sebastien Betermier as its next executive director.

Betermier, who is currently an associate professor of finance at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, will succeed Rob Bauer, professor of finance at the School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University, who’ll be stepping down from the role at the end of 2022.

In April, delegates joined academics, asset managers and a former Canadian Prime Minister at the Chateau Fairmont in Lake Louise, Alta., for the Canadian Investment Review’s 2022 Global Investment Conference.

During the event, almost all of the speakers connected with a central theme: the reasons behind the success of Canada’s largest public pension investment organizations — a group commonly referred to as the Maple 8.

To clarify why these plans have, for the past two decades, been so successful, Sebastien Betermier, an associate professor of finance at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University, outlined his research on a common approach shared by the plans — the Maple model.

The new Sustainable Growth Initiative will provide businesses with 'actionable solutions' for building a more sustainable economy.

McGill University, located in Montreal, has launched the Sustainable Growth Initiative (SGI), a new hub dedicated to providing businesses – including manufacturers – with what it calls “actionable solutions” for building a more sustainable economy.

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) is among the initial investors in McGill University’s ‘Sustainable Growth Initiative (SGI),’ a new hub dedicated to providing businesses with actionable solutions for building a more sustainable economy.

MONTREAL — McGill University announces the launch of the Sustainable Growth Initiative (SGI), a new hub dedicated to providing businesses, including manufacturing businesses, with actionable solutions for building a more sustainable economy. In collaboration with academia, industry partners and policy makers, the cross-faculty venture will help businesses that aim for profitability while having a positive social and environmental impact achieve sustainable growth.

When Canada was last hit by a major recession in 2008, today’s youngest class of investors were just starting elementary school. Now in their late teens and early 20s, Gen Z could soon face the first prolonged economic downturn of their investor lives.

The gleaming skyscrapers of Toronto’s financial district house some of the movers-and-shakers of global business. Less known is that they also represent the vanguard of a new sustainable finance paradigm that promises to become a catalyst and underwriter of solutions for a better future.

Évaluation des risques climatiques d’une entreprise, mesure des critères environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance (ESG) et calcul des émissions carbone d’une entreprise : ces thèmes s’incrustent de plus en plus dans les écoles de gestion au moment où la finance durable s’impose. Le virage est toutefois loin d’être chose faite.

Canadian pension funds are generating value by investing in green urban real estate using a two-pronged strategy, according to a paper on the Social Science Research Network.

The first virtual McGill International Portfolio Competition (MIPC) drew 93 university teams from 18 countries to design portfolio strategies that address the rise of social inequalities and protectionism in the U.K.

A team from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and a solo entry from Bocconi University in Milan each won the coveted $15,000 prize at the end of the competition. McGill professor Sebastien Betermier, the faculty director of the competition, reflects on the factors that set this year’s winners apart from the competition.

This year’s case study focused on the effectiveness of current Dutch pension reforms and the Dutch government’s introduction of Collective Defined Contribution plans, a system in which generations of contributors collectively share investment risks. In this context, students accepted the challenge of designing a sustainable retirement system to address ongoing issues surrounding ultra-low yields.

Originally designed by Sebastien Betermier, an associate professor of finance at the Desautels Faculty of Management, MIPC provides a global platform for experiential learning.

Q&A for the Montreal Gazette, Professor Sebastien Betermier takes a closer look at the terms and metrics related to the funding status of a pension plan. The growth rates and termination costs of a fund, he emphasizes in the piece, largely depend on the type and risk level of assets owned.

Retirement funds are not typical issuers of debt, yet several of Canada's big players have not only sold plenty of conventional bonds, but are increasingly moving to obtain green funding. Capital Monitor looks at the financial realities of why.

A year ago, the world seemed oblivious to signs that a novel virus outbreak in China was a serious, global threat. But one of Wall Street’s biggest but most secretive money machines saw the debacle coming and battened down the hatches.

Jane Street may be little known outside its community — and even there mostly famous for its cultish dedication to a recondite programming language called OCaml. But the company has become one of the world’s largest market-makers, trading more than $17tn worth of securities in 2020.

La pandémie de COVID-19 a révélé bien des failles de nos sociétés, et en particulier de notre modèle économique. La crise climatique, le vieillissement de la population, l’accroissement des inégalités accentuent depuis des années la pression pour changer de perspective. Heureusement, les idées ne manquent pas, les initiatives non plus et, sur ce front, le Québec a peu à envier aux autres. Aujourd’hui : la finance verte, cinquième de six textes.

Every year, the MIPC presents a complex portfolio construction problem that immerses students in an emerging facet of impact investing. Last year’s competition illuminated the complexity of investing in more environmentally sustainable sources of energy. This year presented a fictitious sovereign wealth fund in the UK, the British National Strategic Fund, and asked students to develop an investment strategy and asset allocation framework in the context of the country’s withdrawal from the EU.

The case study featured a unique triple mandate to make the UK more economically independent and equal while generating risk-adjusted returns over the long-term. “We have actually learned of ongoing discussion to launch a real new sovereign wealth fund in the UK that is similar to the BNSF,” shared Betermier. “Now we have a golden opportunity to shape the debate in a time that is especially difficult because of the COVID-19 crisis.”

The McGill International Portfolio Challenge, judged by a team of practitioners that includes representatives from the Canadian pension funds Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, CN Investment Division, CPP Investments, OTPP and PSP Investments, attracted students from 93 teams from 18 countries and asked them to solve a complex portfolio construction problem.

This year, the competition’s fourth, posed the question: How can the finance industry address the rise of social inequalities and protectionist tendencies?

A new study is the first to use real data to do a quantitative analysis of asset allocation strategies and cost structures for hundreds of pension, endowment, and sovereign wealth funds across 11 countries. The results hold valuable lessons not only for financial planners, but also working Canadians dreaming of retirement.

Pressure is on the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) to divest from fossil fuel companies in support of Canada’s transition to a low-carbon economy. Professor Sebastien Betermier comments.

Investment portfolio performance and the degree of liability hedging are key benchmarks for measuring defined benefit plans’ success. On both measures, large Canadian pension plans outperformed their international peers between 2004 and 2018, according to a recently published report.

“The Canadian Pension Fund Model: A Quantitative Portrait” — by Alexander Beath and Chris Flynn from CEM Benchmarking with Sebastien Betermier and Quentin Spehner from the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University.

The Canadian model, revered world over for its supreme pension management, is not low cost despite that being one of its oft-described traits. New research by CEM Benchmarking and McGill University shows that these funds are cost efficient, rather than being low cost.

The Canadian Pension Fund Model: A Quantitative Portrait, looks at the success of the Canadian model and estimates that, by managing a high proportion of assets in-house, Canadian funds reduce costs by approximately one third. However they spend those “savings” on larger internally-managed portfolios; and even though they have less external management, they spend more than their peers on external managers.

Many Canadian funds manage assets in-house, redeploy resources to investment teams and focus on liability hedging.

Canada’s pension funds are beating peers globally in investment performance and are stronger at hedging against liability risks, according to research from McGill University and CEM Benchmarking.

Their success is partly explained by the fact they are more likely to manage their assets in-house, McGill researchers Sebastien Betermier and Quentin Spehner, along with CEM’s Alexander Beath and Chris Flynn, wrote in a July paper. The authors’ findings are based on a study of pensions, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds globally between 2004 and 2018.

Between 2004 and 2018, Canadian pension funds outperformed their international peers both in terms of asset performance and liability hedging, according to a study.

Academic study points to in-house management, concentration on real assets, and indexed liabilities as keys to strength