The Herald reports that “AIMCo’s 11-person board, CEO and three executives were dismissed over the Government of Alberta’s frustration with increasingly high costs and over-reliance on third-party money managers” and notes:
“The province’s extraordinary intervention into the arms-length pension fund manager resurrected questions around potential plans to put a provincial pension to a referendum — an idea that has gone dormant after receiving wide disapproval in late 2023. Finance Minister Nate Horner said Friday the upheaval at AIMCo has ‘nothing to do’ with it being the potential manager.”
[…]
“AIMCo, the sixth-largest pension fund in Canada, is responsible for overseeing the nearly $24 billion Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund and has a mandate to operate independently from the government — though the law defining its mandate allows for greater government involvement than is available to the federal government in relation to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. The now-dismissed board members were all appointed by the governments of former premier Jason Kenney and current Premier Danielle Smith.”
Their late-August “2024 Mid-Year Investment Performance” report is extremely lightweight, and shows no hints of the current slate-cleaning. It notes that they manage $168.9 billion dollars in assets, $24B belonging to Alberta’s Heritage Fund.