Investment Consulting

We advise and guide Committees and Boards through investment strategy and policy reviews, monitoring investment performance and portfolio behaviour, help identify gaps and corrective actions, ensure compliance with policies, design portfolios and make asset allocation decisions.

We help plan sponsors assess and manage the relationship between pension assets and liabilities, develop funding strategies aligned with provincial pension legislation and Canadian Association of Pension Supervisory Authorities (CAPSA) guidelines, and evaluate pension risk transfer options as plans approach maturity.

Our work in this area includes liability-driven investing strategies, analysis of annuity buyout and buy-in options, and scenario modelling to help sponsors understand the cost and risk implications of different funding paths.

We are dedicated to keeping your investment managers on track to meet your goals. We proactively monitor and assess each manager, ensuring all the right elements are in place for their success. If challenges arise, we’re ready to help you find suitable alternatives.

We gather and analyze vast amounts of qualitative and quantitative data from diverse sources—manager questionnaires, research meetings, third-party databases, surveys, performance analyses, and updates from managers. With expertise covering all asset classes and approaches, we help clients stay closely connected to their managers while continually scouting for new opportunities.

Pension and group retirement programs often need help building and sustaining strong governance frameworks aligned with CAPSA guidelines and industry best practices. Our governance solutions ensure regulatory compliance and demonstrate to stakeholders that fiduciary responsibilities are met.

We recognize that good governance is not one-size-fits-all, and we tailor our approach to your organization’s needs. We conduct comprehensive governance reviews, offering an objective, third-party perspective to highlight gaps and align your practices with industry standards. Following the review, we work with you to develop an actionable improvement plan.

Investment performance monitoring is a critical element in the governance of any investment program. Our performance reports are crafted with client feedback, ensuring they clearly show whether your portfolios and investment managers are on track to meet your objectives.

Our commitment to accuracy, timeliness, and innovation drives our reporting capabilities. Built in-house, our reporting software enables us to implement real-time updates, ensuring continuous improvement and uninterrupted service to our clients.

Asset owners face the fundamental decision of which risks to embrace, avoid, and balance within their portfolios. This is the essence of asset allocation—the most impactful, strategic decision in portfolio construction, significantly influencing long-term portfolio outcomes.

We know there’s no single “optimal” asset mix for everyone. We explore each client’s unique objectives and constraints to inform on investable assets. Using our asset/liability modeling tools, we analyze and stress test various client specific asset mixes, eventually supporting clients in making asset allocation decisions that align with goals and financial position. We prioritize sound governance as the foundation for asset allocation decisions, creating a framework that supports your fiduciary responsibilities and leads to success.

We work with clients to design portfolios that reflect their investment policy, risk tolerance and liquidity requirements, selecting the appropriate mix of managers, strategies and vehicles for each asset class.

For Canadian institutional investors, this includes guidance on the use of pooled funds, segregated mandates and alternative investments, ensuring that the portfolio structure is both cost-effective and aligned with the plan's governance framework.

Understanding the full range of risks within an investment program is essential to sound governance. We conduct rigorous quantitative and qualitative risk assessments, including stress testing and scenario analysis, to help clients understand how their portfolios may behave under adverse market conditions.

Our risk analysis work supports investment committees and boards in fulfilling their fiduciary obligations by ensuring that risk exposures are clearly identified, measured and communicated — and that the portfolio remains within the boundaries set by investment policy.

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations are an increasingly important part of investment decision-making for Canadian institutional investors. Regulatory expectations from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) and growing stakeholder scrutiny have made ESG integration a governance priority, not just an ethical preference.

We help clients develop and implement sustainable investing policies that are practical, measurable and aligned with their overall investment objectives. This includes integrating ESG factors into manager research and selection, reviewing existing mandates for ESG alignment and helping clients articulate their approach to stakeholders.

We assist Boards, Committees, and institutional investors in evaluating and selecting service providers through comprehensive search services. We start by understanding your objectives, needs, and preferred working relationship with providers, then identify candidates that align with these criteria. We offer objective, unbiased, and conflict-free research and guidance.