In his first public statement on Alberta Investment Management Corp.’s investment strategy, the organization’s new chief executive officer says the AIMCo won’t have a policy to divest from hydrocarbon producers. “I want to be clear in stating that we believe that divesting hydrocarbons would miss an urgent opportunity to work with the companies who’ve the […]
More standards required for pension funds using ESG data, indices and scores
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Author of the article: Lisa Johnson
Publishing date: May 10, 2021 • 1 day ago • 3 minute read • Members of the Opposition Alberta NDP delivered boxes of complaints, collected from Albertans concerned about their pensions, to the office of the Premier of Alberta at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton on Thursday July 9, 2020. Photo by Larry Wong/Postmedia)
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A pension fund for academics and professional staff at universities has dumped Alberta’s government-owned investment manager from control of $2.7 billion of its assets.
The board of the Universities Academics Pension Plan (UAPP) agreed in December to move its public equities portfolio, and has since withdrawn those assets from the the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) while it searches for a new manager.
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The Alberta Investment Management Corp. is reporting a total fund return of 2.5 per cent net of all fees for 2020, approximately 5.4 per cent below that of its benchmark.
The total represents approximately $3 billion in net investment income, with assets under management reaching $118.6 billion, according to a press release, which noted the annualized total fund returns over four and ten years are 6.1 per cent and 7.7 per cent, respectively.
“[The] AIMCo is a long-term investor, in alignment with the objectives of our clients and accordingly, our performance is gauged by investment returns measured in decades, not years,” said Kevin Uebelein, chief executive officer, of the AIMCo. “Nevertheless, a year like 2020, where so many asset classes declined in near unison, erasing the typical benefits of well-diversified portfolios, is extremely humbling. [The] AIMCo has demonstrated complete transparency regarding investment performance in 2020. We undertook a comprehensive r