"Alberta Investment Management Corp. CEO Kevin Uebelein is on his way out, having led the public fund as it lost billions on wayward volatility trades and became the center of bitter political battles between the province’s far-right government and its own unionized clients."
No one has encapsulated so much with so few words. Even to generally right leaning institutional investors our good ol' 'berta qualifies as a far-right govt.
As I have previously opined, Kevin's major error was putting himself at the center of a political decision. #ABLeg
In other news, LAPP released Q3 numbers. Better for the quarter, but still suffering the effects of blowing $2.1 billion.
Q3 (without the downside protection) 2.89% versus a benchmark of 2.26%. So at least it is on the right side of the benchmark! #ABLeg
I will take this moment to remind you that the LAPP investment goal is 0.85% above the benchmark. Something they are still well short of.
The one year number is truly ugly... 2.51% return versus a bench of 7.22%. Wonder what @premiamgmt will have to say? #ABLeg
The four year LAPP return is 5.89% versus 6.60% for the benchmark.
Not to be surprised from an intellectually challenged finance minister who, for example, appointed two people to the AGLC Board illegally. #ABLeg
BTW Travis has refused to answer any questions about the two appointments. That would be his job.
He also refuses to answer questions about ATRF publicly. #ABLeg
In other AIMCO news the fellow who was the Chief Risk Officer during the VOLTS debacle is leaving. Probably a good idea. #ABLeg
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
This is your daily pension announcement, the Alberta Fiscal Update edition! As you probably well know, Travis provided the Fiscal update available below. TL:dr is okay, I will bring you the naughty bits. #ABLeg open.alberta.ca/publications/6…
First, from the update Travis opines:
"Government obligations for pension plan liabilities are $415 million lower, mainly from improved valuations for the two Teachers’ Pension Plans. Other liabilities have decreased $567 million."
That's right, great investment returns from ATRF have made Travis $415 million. That should give any Minister of Finance pause. Like don't move the management over to AIMCO kind of pause. Travis is in a financial bind and is turning his nose up at future cash. #ABLeg#idiot
The Pension War Room™️ is relieved. After all, I have referred to Kevin as "dead man walking" for some time now. Glad the lawyers involved could get this done. A couple of thoughts: #ABLeg
First, don't worry about Kevin, he will be fine. He currently is mid-contract so the the severance payment is likely to be in the millions. He made $2.8 mil last year and $3.5 mil the year before that. #ABLeg
If Travis gives you some absurdly low number for this severance payment, don't believe him. (often people don't include accrued LTIP payouts in severance calc)
The Pension War Room™️ would like to note some whoppers about public sector pay are being passed around. #AbLeg
I wanted to provide this older (2014) critique of the Fraser Institute. It mirrors my own comments on this topic. albertapolitics.ca/2014/08/the-re…
The materially unreliable Fraser Institute seeps into everything from Gunter's column in the Edmonton Sun ("public sector employees should be happy with pay cut") to GOA reports. He quotes some stats, I think they were from the Fraser Institute. He doesn't say. #ABLeg
Heck even the KPMG in the MacKinnon report quotes Fraser.
My point is garbage in=garbage out. In their free market zeal enforced by their corporate overlords they make few (if any) data supported conclusions. #ABLeg
The Pension War Room wants you to know that Drew Barnes is an idiot in the same vein as Trump; populist economic policy combined with a healthy dose of xenophobia. This is a paid ad gussied up to look like a national post article. #ABLeg nationalpost.com/sponsored/news…
This is the new thing in print "journalism". The @nationalpost will print anything for money and have no qualms about passing it off as an article.
This advertisement-article was paid for by a PAC that was set up to skirt political financing law in AB. #ABLeg
It returns to @jkenney favorite, and,as yet unstudied desire to withdraw from CPP and form an APP.
The errors are many, but considering that we are currently paying millions to have this stupid idea researched, Drew is really tipping his hand here. #ABLeg
This is your daily pension announcement! I was going to spend today's installment educating about "material misstatements" and other things that would get a corporate exec fired. No need just read this..... #ABLeg
I have said before, and I say again, Travis is financially incompetent. He is not able to understand the concept of risk adjusted rate of return. Or, the idea that a pension fund with a higher return might cost you less in the long run. #ABLeg
Just the mere thought that some bush league tricks would fluff up the the dire UCP financial performance and outwit the AG is ridiculous.
Capitalists never do socialism well. It only ends up as graft for cronies. Sturgeon refinery needs its own inquest. See toryland. #ABLeg
Just so you know I will be retweeting this interview every day. @SPhillipsAB is on 🔥🔥. Parallels in pension policy can not be ignored. No research or shoddy research behind multi-billion dollar decisions. The CPP advice that Exec Council got quotes seriously flawed Fraser Inst.
Travis: "We have a detailed business case prepared to support moving pension asset management to AIMCO." (Neglecting the fact that they are not his assets to move in the first place.)
FOIP release: A marketing brochure written by AIMCO.
Then, since no civil servant was charged with an actual analysis (as they very likely substantially disagreed) Travis and Athana sent it out to some mook in BC named Peter Milburn for a positive opinion. #AbLeg
(Athana came from BC and worked with Peter back in the day.)