OPB protects the retirement security of the close to 90,000 members – current, retired and deferred – of Ontario’s Public Service Pension Plan (PSPP). To ensure the Plan remains sustainable and affordable, we take a thoughtful, long-term approach to investment and a focused approach to managing operations and costs.
Challenging markets are part of investing, which means that investment returns will vary from year to year. However, as a defined benefit pension plan, the PSPP is designed for long-term sustainability – meaning that your pension’s sustainability is not dependent on how the markets perform in a given year.
The funded status of the Plan remains secure at 93%.
In partnership with IMCO, we work to increase the value of the PSPP’s assets. We retain ownership of our assets and the responsibility for developing an investment allocation strategy for those assets. Asset pooling opens the door to meaningful partnerships and opportunities as well as to enhanced efficiencies and economies of scale.
A total of $151 million in returns was generated through the sale of our interests in Anglian Water ($31 million) and a high-growth branded consumer products company ($120 million).
We support the Province’s strategy of consolidating smaller public sector pension plans into the PSPP. It allows for more focused management, and more efficient use of resources and personnel, while increasing our scale and enhancing the PSPP’s sustainability through enhanced business efficiencies and economies of scale.
Two plans, TVO’s and ONTC’s, merged into the PSPP during 2018. Their smooth integration helped set the blueprint for further consolidation.
In 2018, we helped our members build their retirement and financial literacy through workshops and educational articles, and launched the new opb.ca website.
We launched our new responsive website, providing members with a better user experience and greater accessibility, in line with the Province’s Digital First initiative.