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By Canadian Press/rdnewsNOW

MINISTER HORNER INTERIM CEO

Alberta fires AIMCo board and CEO, NDP responds

Nov 7, 2024 | 5:26 PM

Alberta’s finance minister, Nate Horner, has sacked the board of directors of AIMCo, the body that manages more than $160 billion in pension, endowment and government funds for the province.

Horner, in a statement, says the reason is poor performance, with rising staffing and management fees coupled with a consistent failure to meet mandated benchmark returns.

Horner says the decision takes effect immediately and he will be sole director and chair for AIMCo until a new chair is appointed within 30 days, with a new board established after that.

Horner says it’s time to reset the investment corporation’s focus.

The province said that from 2019 to 2023, AIMCo’s third-party management fees have increased by 96 per cent, the number of employees increased by 29 per cent and salary wage and benefit costs increased by 71 per cent.

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These costs all increased, it said, while AIMCo managed a smaller percentage of funds internally.

Court Ellingson, Alberta NDP shadow minister for finance, issued a statement in response, calling the move “UCP incompetence.”

“In an unprecedented move, the UCP fired the entire board and the CEO, and made their own politician—not an investment expert—the sole person in charge of over $170 billion of these Albertans’ pensions,” said Ellingson.

He continued, “Today, they could have put in place a new interim board and CEO,” adding that AIMCo is intended to be an arms-length, non-partisan organization.

“The premier herself appointed some of these AIMCo directors. The finance minister himself said this spring that AIMCo was doing a good job. To suggest this is about AIMCo salaries, when this government passed legislation to remove the caps on salaries for board members, is ludicrous,” he said.

Ellingson finished by calling for the government to pull Horner from a governing position with AIMCo and put in place a non-partisan interim board and CEO.

By the Canadian Press, with files from rdnewsNOW.