Latest Pension News
Fall 2025 Pension News
Mar 17, 2026
The Annual Pension Plan Meeting was held on October 9
It was web-based with some five hundred members initially registered for the event. In the end three hundred members were online for the meeting itself with a good number staying for the duration of the meeting.
After the Pension Board Members introduced themselves, the Chair of the Board—Jeff Bichet—orchestrated the presentation of the Annual Report organized as follows: 2024 Highlights, Plan Membership, Investments, Funding Policy, Financial Status of the Fund, Actuarial Valuation, Plan Management, What’s Ahead, Resources for Members and Retirement Planning.
Prior to the meeting, the Annual Report had been mailed to CUPA members; it is currently available online see Links tab.
There was no motion from the floor (registered participants) calling for elections to replace members (other than those appointed by the Board of the University).
The meeting ended with an open discussion of written questions posed by those online. These included: the potential role of crypto currencies in our portfolio, the significance of our holdings with asset managers investing in privates, the reason for our significant investments in the real-estate sector.
Mar 17, 2026
The Pension Board met on September 25
The primary decision was to allocate funds to two multi-strategy platforms to the Capital Preservation bucket: Magnitude and Graham. Magnitude offers exposure to a diversified set of multi-strategy managers with approximately 70% of Magnitude’s portfolio composed of managers that are otherwise inaccessible to new investors so providing our Plan with a unique advantage. Graham, on the other hand, specializes in macro strategies—a segment underrepresented in our current capital preservation structure—and thus provides complementary diversification. The proposed changes are expected to improve the portfolio’s performance. The current Capital Preservation allocation has delivered an annualized return of approximately 4% with a volatility of 5.5% for the period between August 2023 and July 2025. The revised structure, incorporating the new managers, would by contrast have yielded over the same period a higher 9% return with reduced volatility of 2.4%.
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Final preparations for the upcoming annual meeting of the pension plan, scheduled for October 9 were also discussed. The meeting is a key event in the pension calendar, with approximately 300 attendees expected. In response to feedback from previous years, the proposed presentation will be lighter in content and considerably more concise, with a target duration of 60 minutes to improve participant retention throughout the session.
Mar 17, 2026
Patricia Saputo was Chair of the Pension Board from 2008- 2024.
During her tenure, the Plan evolved from the traditional 60-40 structure to the current portfolio. The major conceptual accomplishment has been a complete reworking of the Plan’s portfolio to align with the University’s and members’ risk tolerance in an affordable and sustainable fashion. Her signal operational contribution was to shepherd the newly-formed ISC committee into a highly cohesive effective unit that has had an abnormal appetite for work. It did work (!) meeting some eight times a year with full agendas. What made it all function effectively was Patricia’s engaging and open personality that overlaid considerable financial knowledge and experience. She imparted a formidable professional style to our deliberations. She certainly will be missed.
