When Claude Lamoureux became the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s first chief executive officer in 1990, the plan’s then-C$19 billion (US$19.2 billion) in assets were in government bonds. Under Mr. Lamoureux’s leadership, the fund diversified its portfolio and grew to C$106 billion at the end of 2006.
So what better way to celebrate Mr. Lamoureux — who helped keep educators’ retirements funded — at his own retirement at year’s end than by establishing an endowment to fund education?
Roughly 80 of his friends, employees and colleagues pitched in a combined C$1 million, which was matched by two government funding programs for a total of C$3 million, to fund an endowment at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, London. Each year, the endowment, which will be pooled with the school’s other endowment assets, will award C$135,000 for scholarships to help up to 10 students “achieve their dreams of studying business.”
“I am overwhelmed, but thrilled,” Mr. Lamoureux said in a news release. “The thought that Ivey students will be benefiting from such a generous gesture on the part of my friends is the most thoughtful and meaningful gift I can imagine receiving.”
