Canadian Pension Funds - Articles & White Papers

Now in its tenth year, the 2022 Natixis Global Retirement Index takes a deep dive into the critical issues driving global retirement security on the heels of the pandemic – and reveals the top countries for retirement security around the world.

The global top 300 pension funds is an annual study conducted by the Thinking Ahead Institute. The research highlights high-level trends in the pension fund industry and provides information on how the characteristics of these top funds have changed.

The U.K. bond market has been left in turmoil in recent weeks, with pension plans using leveraged liability-driven investing (LDI) strategies bearing the brunt of a massive sell-off of government bonds—or gilts. In this note, our LDI experts look at the causes of the collapse, and, given the widespread use of LDI strategies…

This paper frames the decision to purchase a fixed immediate annuity as a wager that can be won or lost. The alternative bet is to hold a portfolio of long government bonds, drawing income and liquidating principal as necessary. The paper applies a historical rather than mathematical lens to calculate the odds of each…

The survey is completed annually (except in 2008, which included two iterations, spring and fall), generally during November. In addition to the top emerging and top five emerging risks, the survey also looks at the top current risk and risk combinations. Combinations of risks often follow the patterns shown when looking at…

To build climate resilience Pension fund administrators need to adopt net-zero emissions by 2050. This will match the pace and change committed by Canada along with other global governments and will guard against climate risks associated with the low-carbon transition.

The “Maple Revolutionaries” are Canada’s large public sector pension plans and the investment organizations that manage their assets. The eight largest, “The Maple 8”, manage the assets of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP Investments), the Quebec Pension Plan and other Quebec public sector pension plans (CDPQ), the British…

In Canada, waves of employees are now retiring with their entire workplace retirement savings in CAPs. With Canadian CAP membership growing and CAPs maturing, there is an increasingly urgent need for improved, and more widely accessible, decumulation4 products and services than those currently available. Whether offered…

Mercer Global Pension Buyout Index monitors the general trend in the pricing of bulk pension annuity transactions in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland and Germany.

Pension fund administrators have a fiduciary duty to prudently manage financial risks and opportunities when investing plan assets and when managing plan operations that are paid from the pension fund. This includes the financial risks and opportunities associated with climate change and other environmental, social and…

On a quarterly basis, the Group Annuity Purchase Team at WTW provides updates on the Canadian group annuity market.

WTW’s Pension Finance Watch tracks the asset/liability performance of a hypothetical Canadian benchmark pension plan, based on a 50/50 asset mix and a typical liability profile. The index is not intended to represent an average funded ratio. Rather, the intent is to provide plan sponsors with a consistent and relevant…

On a quarterly basis, the Group Annuity Purchase Team at WTW provides updates on the Canadian group annuity market.

For a comprehensive analysis of global investment returns and liability growth, as well as an in-depth look at Brazil, Canada, the Eurozone, Japan, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S., read the latest edition of Global Pension Finance Watch.

What percentage of its assets should a defned beneft pension plan invest into stocks as its funding ratio varies? The authors show that the answer to this question depends on the institutional setting and in particular on the extent to which the sponsoring company contributes to the fund as the funding ratio varies.

Large Canadian pension funds have doubled their investment in emerging markets over the last decade. The foreign exchange risk exposure arising from emerging market investments can substantially affect the underlying assets’ overall risk-return profile once redenominated in the investors’ home currency. Yet there is a lack…

The Global Pension Statistics Project measures and monitors the pension industry, allowing inter-country comparisons of current statistics and indicators on key aspects of retirement systems. Assets in pension funds rose by over 8% in the OECD area and nearly 2% in other reporting jurisdictions in 2021. Pension funds…

As the Dutch pension system will be changed from a defined benefit (DB) system toward a defined contribution (DC) system in the upcoming years, there is much to learn from national and international pension institutions that offer DC products. This report describes the results from fifteen interviews with communication…

Pensions may be missing out on a technological disruption that could represent the most profound new development in the digital economy since its start in the late 1990s. To date, they have lagged other institutional investors in the digital assets space. Barring a few well-publicised exceptions, investments by pensions into…

In this paper, the authors investigate the optimal management of defined contribution pension plan under relative performance ratio and Value-at-Risk (abbr. VaR) constraint. Inflation risk is introduced in this paper and the financial market consists of cash, inflation-indexed zero coupon bond and a stock. The goal of the…