This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️has had a lot of good conversation (both on and off line) about political interference in pension investments. It's a bad idea for a couple of reasons. #AbLeg 1. They are usually bad at it. Politicians make decisions based on political reasons not business reasons. Look at @jkenny and the whole KXL disaster. We still haven't got a full tally, but safe to say at least $1.3 billion of taxpayer dollars was lost.

The Pension War Room™️ marks the end of 2024 as "the death of pension irony". Where we had Minster of Finance Travis declare that @aimcoinvests was the best that there was. His successor (same govt) Minister Nate declares @aimcoinvests to be the worst there has ever been. #Abgov So it follows by no logic whatsoever that the Board, CEO and a bevy of other executives must be fired and paid beaucoup $$$ for severance. This $$$ including dollars from teachers, nurses, and police officers who **do not** have any say in the goings on @aimcoinvests . #Abgov

The Pension War Room™️ again brings you this conundrum. Reasons for @NateHornerAB removing the AIMCO Board keep changing! Barb here, definitely has insider access. Read it

Alberta's preference for Stephen Harper was well known within AIMCo, sources say financialpost.com/fp-finance/alb… To recap: the original reason for destroying @aimcoinvests was cost plus investment performance. We know know that wasn't true in any logical world.

Barb here floats reason #2: that CEO @ewsiddall was a "liberal" or a "Laurentian Elite". #AbLeg

The Pension War Room™️needs you to read this piece from the G &M. No, I can't link to it.

You may remember Mr. Willis from the original AIMCO conundrum. He is correct in this case, the pension plans bear the consequences of AIMCOs bad decisions. #AbLeg To quote Mr. Willis:
"The day after Mr. Horner marched AIMCo executives out the door, LAPP put out a press release to say that “your pension remains safe and secure.” LAPP executives declined further comment... #AbLeg

The Pension War Room™️ reviews this AIMCO quote from Bloomberg: "Employees have already told acquaintances they want new jobs, anticipating the province will begin treating the pension manager like a state agency and slash their pay." #Ableg Yeah, so this is the hidden cost of @NateHornerAB's actions. A ton of employees with very specific skill sets have already sent their resumes out. This are employees who were very difficult to recruit to start with. #AbLeg

This is your daily pension announcement! The Pension War Room™️ would note Jim-Bob Dinning is still a stan for the APP. He was at the Calgary Golf and Country Club while the rest of the UCP were lathering up in Red Deer. #AbLeg It appears that his message has not changed. Lifeworks/Telus report=The Word of God. Yeah, even the bits he reproduced for handouts at the events had all sorts of warnings from the actuary about "best estimates". #AbLeg

This is your daily pension announcement! Smith recruiting private schools to stack the leadership vote shows a level of desperation. She didn't invent this strategy (@jkenney did), but she needs it. #AbLeg It seems two groups are organizing against her: one group thinks she had the power to stop the prosecution of domestic terrorists. The other is angry she reneged on a promise to cut taxes.

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️ is mildly piqued at the continued operation of @aimcoinvests without a Board Chair. Speculation centers around the UCP trying to appoint a politician and failing (twice) on conflict of interest grounds. #AbLeg It is well past time that I remind you if you have a DB pension plan the money in that plan IS NOT your employers. It is held, in trust, and cared for by a trustee. That trustee has the fiduciary responsibility to invest wisely and to pay out benefits to you when the time comes.

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️ can't believe this needs to be said again. But, after some side comments from some local UCP MLAs, here we go:
1. The GOA is a minority (49%) contributor to the
teachers' retirement plan. #ableg 2. The GOA does **NOT** guarantee pensions. They are guaranteed by the assets in the plan. (There was a guarantee until 1992.)
3. Since the GOA contributes 49%, they appoint half the Board Members to the ATRF Board. #AbLeg

This is your daily pension announcement: The Pension War Room™️ is awash in the irony that is the TBA faction of the UCP caucus. Did the slide deck used to convince caucus of DS's latest flaky idea have data from a fake polling firm? I feel the need to know. #AbLeg We are expecting the @ATRFPension Annual Report (to Aug 23) to come out this week. We will be able to see just how far @aimcoinvests has come to saving us $40 million each and every year. My informed opinion is they have saved teachers $0. Every claim AIMCO made was false. #AbLeg

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️ reveals this King's Bench pension decision. If you recall, LAPP, PSPP and SFPP are holding @aimcoinvests and GOA accountable for $1.33 billion dollars of VOLTS losses. #ABLeg
canlii.org/en/ab/abkb/doc… It looks like the GOA tried to sever themselves from the (top secret) arbitration hearing. So your hardworking pension plans needed to go to King's Bench Court to have the GOA again added as a defendant. Which they were, with costs. #AbLeg

The Pension War Room™️ notes that you must be disappointed if you expected someone with a medical background as CEO of AHS. Instead you get Athana. Famous for pension misinformation back in the day. (She was DM of TBF during pension theft.) #AbLeg

edmonton.ctvnews.ca/alberta-health… A bunch of my old tweets got new life with this announcement. I had catalogued stupid and untrue things she had said about pensions. Stuff like "the GOA assumes all of the pension liability" and "the GOA pays for public sector pensions".

The Pension War Room™️ will again sink into the effluent of pension discourse with a cautionary tale from 1992. The teachers' plan was seriously underfunded (mostly due to GOA).

Teachers were talked into a solution that involved them contribution 1.6% of pay. #AbLeg In hindsight we see that was a number with little basis in reality. And, after teachers started making that contribution it was found to be "wrong" that they needed to contribute 3.1% of pay. Nearly double.

Bait and switch 'berta style. #AbLeg

This is your daily pension announcement! Good news from @ATRFPension, the Annual Report has just dropped. I need some time to analyze the entire thing but the great news is...
#ABLeg #handsoffmypension
atrf.com/about-atrf/202… The plan funded ration is up to 99% (up from 81% in 2014). This all important ratio means that assets almost = liabilities. This improvement is the result of important work the ATRF Board did over the last 10 years. #ABLeg

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️ notes the fiscal update for AB was released. The pension liabilities are on page 30. I would note the current liabilities are $0 as the plans are fully funded.

open.alberta.ca/dataset/9c81a5… I would also note that the assets of the pension plan DO NOT appear as assets for the GOA.

That is, of course, because that money does not belong to the GOA. Which, again, begs the questions as to why the GOA would make unilateral decisions about money that isn't theirs...

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️is obliged to inform that @aimcoinvests does NOT have any crypto investments. So that toxic waste dump has been avoided (ON teachers lost millions with the FTX collapse.) #AbLeg #greatnews LAPP Q3 results are out. After all the positive months, things have turned not positive. Q3 had a -0.3% return, which on its own does not mean anything. Compared to the benchmark of +0.5% it is not good. Far too short of a time period to make firm conclusions. #AbLeg

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War™️ is a spooky🦇🦇place to be! It is clear the GOA relies on confusion around the word "benchmarks" to explain away crappy decisions. Let me use LAPP as an example. Here is DM of TBF Athana:
“LAPP set something called a value-add [target];
it’s like a stretch goal.”

What she was talking about is the "policy benchmark". #AbLeg

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️is basking in the afterglow of the Heritage Fund public meeting. Because, of course, @aimcoinvests has no other accountability to teachers or any other pension plan for that matter. #AbLeg #handsoffmypension A couple of finer points on the q's asked. The AIMCO business case stated that other funds like Heritage should save 0.04% (out of 0.90%) in costs because of scale. We haven't seen any savings yet. TBF seems to say we can't see it or measure it even if it existed... #AbLeg

This is your daily pension announcement. On the heels of the huge #Rally4Ed it may get lost that the tiny bit of public accountability for @aimcoinvests is this week.

This committee is having their annual public meeting.

assembly.ab.ca/assembly-busin… "The Standing Committee on the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund invites all Albertans to its annual public meeting on Thursday, October 27, 2022, at 7 p.m. Attend in person at the Queen Elizabeth II Building, 9820-107 Street."

This is your daily pension announcement. The Pension War Room™️ attended a huge #Rally4Ed today. Teachers that were in the crowd expressed concern about pensions and #aimcoinvests. But really the focus was on why the UCP was dismantling a leading ed system. #AbLeg If you recall: Dr. Bob published a critical review of the MacKinnon report that the UCP blindly followed.
His findings:

"Consultation and cooperation are not necessary in reaching the Panel’s findings and recommendations."
abpolecon.ca/2019/10/30/cri…

This is your daily pension announcement: The Pension War Room™️can't help but notice that DS worked for the Fraser Institute at one time. That org is single-handedly responsible for the misinformation related to the cost of an Alberta Pension Plan. #AbLeg I have gone through their errors many times in this space. Suffice to say, they don't include any recognition that, as a much smaller plan, contributions need to be much higher as the plan is more risky. Never mind the fact that AB demographics are changing. #AbLeg