Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves is meeting with Canadian pension funds as she looks at bringing lessons from the country’s retirement model back to the U.K., as part of the new Labour government’s efforts to “fire up the U.K. economy.”
Reeves is studying how the consolidation of pension funds into larger plans can help to drive investment into productive assets, including infrastructure and high-growth businesses. She is hosting a roundtable with the Maple 8 group of Canadian retirement plans in Toronto on Aug. 7, according to a government statement.
The meeting follows the new government’s announcement of a review of retirement plan investment, announced in July, which aims to boost investment in the U.K. and deliver higher returns to participants.
“The size of Canadian pension schemes means they can invest far more in productive assets like vital infrastructure than ours do,” Reeves said in the statement. “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.”
The U.K. retirement market has undergone various changes over recent years as part of government efforts to boost home-based investment. Local authority pension funds in England and Wales were consolidated into eight asset pools following a 2015 announcement by the previous government, for example, and more recently, nine retirement plans and insurance companies pledged to allocate up to 5% of their default funds into U.K. private companies.
Other efforts to boost U.K. investment include setting up a National Wealth Fund and overhauling U.K. stock-exchange listings rules.
The so-called Maple 8 pension funds are: Alberta Investment Management Corp., Edmonton with C$160.6 billion ($117.8 billion) in assets; British Columbia Investment Management Corp., Victoria (C$229.5 billion); Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, Montreal (C$434 billion); Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Toronto (C$632.6 billion); Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan, Toronto (C$112.6 billion); Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, Toronto (C$128.6 billion); Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Toronto (C$247.5 billion); and Public Sector Pension Investment Board, Montreal (C$264.9 billion).
A separate statement by the government said that Reeves is also visiting New York and Toronto with the message that "Britain is open for business," meeting with CEOs and senior representatives from various industries to highlight the government's efforts to "fix the foundations and restore economic stability makes the U.K. an attractive destination for investment."
