North America

CANADA - The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has poured C$400m (US$375m) into a private equity fund of funds that will invest in Canadian small-mid sized companies.

US - The US Department of Labor (DOL) and the Treasury are requesting feedback on the implications of integrating a lifetime annuity arrangement into defined contribution plans.

US - President Barack Obama called for the discontinuation of tax cuts for investment fund managers in his first State of the Union address yesterday.

UK/US - Two US investment management firms have decided to launch target date funds in an assault on the UK DC market, Global Pensions has learned.

CANADA - Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec will focus on generating returns in line with its liabilities and simplify the schemes investments as it tries to recover from the financial crisis, its chief executive said.

US - Russell Investments has tapped two Barclays Global Investors executives formerly tasked with growing its ETF arm iShares to help Russell build out products related to the exchange traded funds business.

CANADA - The global stock market rally helped Canadian schemes claw back most of their 2008 losses, a survey showed.

US - Staff at the California State Teachers Retirement System want to expand the range of active versus passive management they can use in the global equity portfolio, stating the current policy is too restrictive.

CANADA - The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec has partnered with investor Capital régional et coopératif Desjardins (CRCD) to invest a total of C$600m (US$573m) between the two in small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs).

US - The Fresno County Employees' Retirement Association (FCERA) has eliminated its global fixed income allocation and diverted those assets to emerging markets.