Marlene Puffer
Chair, Canadian Taxonomy and Transition Planning Council · 1 appearance on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
investorexecutiveLinkedIn ↗businessfuturepathways.ca ↗
Dr. Marlene Puffer previously served as Chief Investment Officer of AIMCo and earlier as President and CEO of the CN Investment Division, overseeing the CN Pension Trust Funds. She has also served as Vice Chair of the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan board and past president of Women in Capital Markets.
35statements → 6claims → 2claims resolved → 3.91/5average certainty → 1.8/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →
2 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 4 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
6 assertions · 4 opinions · 12 insights · 13 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 4 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Marlene argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Their most notable supported claim
Puffer: Large Canadian pensions have minimal home bias in return-seeking assets
“We don't have much of a home bias anymore in the large Canadian pension plans. Canada is, call it, three point something percent of GDP globally, and our portfolios now are closer to reflecting that in our return-seeking assets.”
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Marlene Puffer on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Marlene Puffer said on Capital Allocators that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Puffer: Consultant Gatekeepers and OCIO Models Block Competitors From Small Pensions
“The power of the consulting community is still very high and was during that period. So we had gatekeepers that made it very difficult for us to really get at the decision makers we needed to get at. And those gatekeepers were at the same time creating their o…”
Puffer: AIMCo invests in high-carbon assets to transition them to green
“We have the flexibility to take on assets that may have a carbon footprint that today doesn't look great in order to be strong stewards of capital to ensure that technology is applied appropriately in those areas to take them from gray to greener.”
Puffer: Pension plans' 50-50 currency hedge approach makes no sense
“Often, pension plans have ended up in the so-called no regrets, fifty-fifty hedge half approach, which really doesn't make sense.”
Puffer: Retail investors are gouged by structured financial products
“The gouging of retail investors, especially through structured products.”
Puffer: Trading floor desk mechanics provide unmatched capital markets insight
“I know how the swap desk interacts with the rates desk, interacts with the currency desk, interacts with the debt origination desk when a corporate deal comes to market, for example. And not many people get that exposure. Its value to me today is huge that I u…”
Puffer: Sell-side trading floors prioritize bank P&L over client returns
“On the trading floor, it really is about P&L. It's about, are you making money today? Did you make money yesterday? How are you making money tomorrow? And who are you making money for? Well, you're not really aiming to make money for the clients, other than in…”
Puffer: CN Investment Division Pioneered Direct Pension Investing Before the Maple Eight
“They were involved in all the private markets doing funds and co-investments and direct investing in ways that You would not expect from a plan that size when you think about American plans of that size at all. Very sophisticated, very similar to the larger Ma…”
Puffer: CN Pension Fund Overall Asset Allocation Was Leveraged at ~15%
“Overall asset allocation ended up being, importantly, leveraged at about 15%.”
Puffer: CN Pension Raised Fixed Income Liability Hedging Above 50%
“The fixed income went from hedging something like 25% of the liabilities to more than 50% of the liabilities.”
Puffer: Asset-liability management principles remain identical across all fund sizes
“Well, pension plan, whether it's three billion or twenty billion or one hundred and sixty billion, where I am today, the principles of asset liability management for the pension plan clients here at AIMCO, they're all the same.”
Puffer: Canadian Pension Compensation Is Close to Private Asset Managers
“I would say the pension space doesn't quite pay at the same level as some of those areas, but it's not too far off.”
Puffer: Canadian Pensions Maintain Non-Political Governance Independent from Government
“We've also got the strength of governance whereby we're separate from government. It's not political here in Canada.”
Puffer: AIMCo prefers performance fees over fixed fees for managers
“We don't mind paying performance fees. We like them better than fixed fees. So that alignment of interest is a powerful tool for us with our external managers.”
Puffer: AIMCo avoids venture capital due to scale and focus
“We don't have much activity in venture capital. That area has just not been a focus for ANCO in a big way, and our scale is not sufficiently large that we really need to reach into that space at this time.”
Puffer: Tail risk hedging has weak external manager alignment
“Tail risk hedging is tricky to do as an external strategy, because it's a bit of a no-win situation. It's basically an insurance policy, no matter how it's structured. Unless there's a crisis where the tail risk pays, you expect it to be something that loses m…”
Puffer: Evaluating external managers is as much about talent management as strategy
“The fundamental piece of assessing external managers is as much the talent and alignment of interest and how they manage talent as it is about the actual strategies and investment process.”
Puffer: Stagflation from policy error is among the toughest portfolio environments
“In terms of the markets themselves, I'm worrying about the risk that the policymakers don't get this right, and that we end up in a stagflationary environment. That's a serious risk. And it's very difficult to steer a portfolio to be really resilient against t…”
Puffer: Renewables and resource investments offer premier inflation hedging
“The diversification can include renewables and resources, as an example, where that's diversification into some commodity price risk, and that can be one of the best hedges against inflation.”
Puffer: Maple Eight developed investment thinking used by GIC and NZ Super
“When you think about New Zealand Super and GIC, some of the European pension plans, much of the thinking that has been put in place in those pension plans has been developed at the Maple Eight and enhanced in those funds tailored to their needs and their gover…”
Puffer: Large Canadian pensions have minimal home bias in return-seeking assets
“We don't have much of a home bias anymore in the large Canadian pension plans. Canada is, call it, three point something percent of GDP globally, and our portfolios now are closer to reflecting that in our return-seeking assets.”
Puffer: USD, yen, and Swiss franc act as crisis tail-risk hedges
“When we think about crisis periods, the US dollar, the yen, Swiss franc, really play a role of tail risk Hedges and natural diversifiers.”
Puffer: Foreign fixed income requires currency hedging while equities should not
“Typically those would get hedged or fixed income like where the volatility of the return stream is low. The currency volatility can swamp that. And usually that's playing an asset liability function in the portfolio. So typically that kind of investment stream…”
Puffer: Investment industry resists specialists shifting asset classes or roles
“This industry doesn't make it easy to shift asset classes, it doesn't make it easy to shift rules when you've become a specialist in something pretty early on and reached a pretty high level pretty early on.”
Puffer: AIMCo manages 17 distinct clients without controlling asset mix decisions
“And at AIMCO, we don't control the strategic asset mix decision. We are not one pool of capital, like Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and others here in Canada. We are more like BCI in British Columbia and the Caisse de Dépoux in Quebec, where we have multiple c…”
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Marlene Puffer – Canadian Pension Model at AIMCo (EP.337) | Sep 11, 2023 | 46m |