UK Chancellor Reeves Meets With Maple 8 Bosses on Implementing ‘Canadian Style’ Investing in British Plans

Photo: Kirsty O’Connor / HM Treasury

The U.K.’s chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, this week met with leaders of some of the largest Canadian pension funds, colloquially known as the Maple 8, in Toronto as part of a broader North America trip that includes meetings with investment leaders in the U.S. and Canada in an effort to boost investments and partnerships.

The goal of the meeting with the pension fund leaders is to examine how the U.K. could adopt some of the investment styles used by the large public Canadian funds.

The Maple 8 refers to some of the largest Canadian pension funds:

Alberta Investment Management Corp. (C$160.6 billion);

BCI (C$250.4 billion);

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (C$434.2 billion);

CPP Investments (C$632.3 billion);

Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (C$112.6 billion);

Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (C$36 billion);

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (C$247.5 billion); and

Public Sector Pension Investment Board (C$264.9 billion).

These funds also boast strong returns. PSP Investments reports one-, five- and 10-year annualized returns of 7.2%, 7.9% and 8.3%, respectively, as of March 31. CPP Investments reports one-, five- and 10-year returns of 8.0%, 7.8% and 9.2%, respectively, as of March 31

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These investors are renowned for their investment style, which emphasizes direct investments, internal management of assets and higher allocations to asset classes such as private equity and infrastructure.

“I want British schemes to learn lessons from the Canadian model and fire up the U.K. economy, which would deliver better returns for savers and unlock billions of pounds of investment,” said Reeves in a statement.

Most pension funds in Canada are in a funding surplus because they have more pension assets than they have in liabilities that have to be paid out to beneficiaries.

In Toronto, Reeves also met with several stakeholders in clean energy and infrastructure, as the U.K. is in the process of setting up a sovereign wealth fund focused on energy transition investments and infrastructure projects in the country.

In New York, Reeves met with the CEOs of multiple banks and institutions, including Citi’s Jane Fraser, Barclays Americas’ Richard Haworth and executives from Blackstone, BNY and other firms.