OMERS, officially the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, is a pension fund created by statute in 1962 to handle the retirement benefits of local government employees in the Canadian province of Ontario. It has become one of the largest institutional investors in Canada. As of December 2017, OMERS had 95 billion Canadian dollars in net investment assets. OMERS serves 984 employers and almost half a million active, deferred and retired employees of nearly 1,000 municipalities, school boards, libraries, police and fire departments, and other local agencies in communities across Ontario.
Video OMERS
Structure
OMERS is governed by the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Act, 2006, an Ontario law which superseded the older Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System Act.
Under the 2006 law, OMERS is composed of two corporations:
- The Administration Corporation, formerly known as the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement Board, provides strategic, risk and operational management in serving Plan members and employers, collecting contributions and paying pensions, and investing the Plan funds.
- The Sponsors Corporation provides strategic and risk oversight and decision-making with regard to designing pension benefits, setting contribution levels, and determining the composition of the two OMERS Boards.
Maps OMERS
Investments
OMERS has five major investment divisions:
- OMERS Infrastructure, which invests in public infrastructure
- OMERS Capital Markets, which manages investment in the public markets, such as government bonds and stock in publicly traded companies
- OMERS Private Equity, which concentrates on private equity investment
- Oxford Properties, which owns real estate such as office buildings and shopping centres
- OMERS Strategic Investments, which includes a venture capital arm, OMERS Ventures.
OMERS Infrastructure
OMERS strategy has been to invest in a global portfolio of high-quality assets.
Outline of OMERS Infrastructure assets:
- Associated British Ports -- handles nearly a quarter of the U.K.'s seaborne trade by weight as its largest ports group, highly diversified through ownership of ports across England, Scotland and Wales
- Alectra -- reliable energy provider, serving nearly one million customers in Alliston, Aurora, Barrie, Beeton, Brampton, Bradford, Hamilton, Markham, Mississauga, Penetanguishene, Richmond Hill, St. Catharines, Thornton,
Tottenham and Vaughan
- Bruce Power -- Canada's only private sector nuclear generator and the world's largest nuclear operating site, generating approximately one-third of its electricity from its 6,300 MW facility
- Caruna -- Finland's largest electricity distribution network supplying almost 635,000 customers with 12,600 TWh of electricity distributed annually
- Chicago Skyway -- manages, operates and maintains the 12.5-kilometre (7.8-mile) Chicago Skyway toll road under a concession agreement which runs until 2104
- CLH -- provides refined oil products transportation and storage in Spain and the U.K. through a network of thousands of kilometres of pipelines and storage facilities
- Ellevio -- Sweden's second largest electricity distributor supplying approximately 900,000 customers
- GNL Quintero -- LNG regasification terminal supplying all the gas consumed in Santiago, Chile and surrounding region
- LifeLabs -- Canada's largest community laboratory services provider, performing more than 100 million lab tests annually serving 19 million patients
- London City Airport -- the closest airport to Central London, located seven miles from the City of London financial district and three miles from the Canary Warf financial centre
- MCV -- America's largest natural gas-fired combined heat and power plant with a 1,600+ MW electricity capacity, and 1.5 million pounds per hour process steam production capacity
- NET4GAS -- Exclusive gas transmission system operator in the Czech Republic, operating more than 3,800 km of pipelines and transporting 45 billion m3 of natural gas annually
- Port of Melbourne -- Australia's largest container and multi-cargo port. With 36 commercial berths, the Port is visited by more than 3,000 ships per year
- Oncor -- The largest transmission and distribution company in Texas, providing electricity to more than 10 million customers via more than 119,000 miles (191,000 km) of transmission and distribution lines
- Scotia Gas Networks -- The U.K.'s second largest gas distribution network, supplying approximately 5.8 million residential, commercial and industrial consumers in Scotland and Southeast England
- Tank & Rast -- Germany's largest owner and concessionaire of a network of motorway service areas, providing essential services to 500 million visitors each year
- Teranet -- The exclusive provider of essential, statutory electronic property search and registration services under long-term concessions in the provinces of Ontario and Manitoba
- Thames Water -- The largest water utility in England and Wales, providing services to approximately 9 million water and 15 million wastewater customers across London and the Thames Valley
OMERS Private Equity
Among the private companies OPE owns are Marketwired (purchased at the end of 2006) and Oxford Properties (purchased at the beginning of 2003).
OMERS and Apax Partners (a fund OMERS invests in) jointly own Cengage Learning, a large education resource company formerly known as Thomson Learning before OMERS and Apax Partners bought it on May 11, 2007. Some parts of Thomson Learning had been sold off to other groups before this sale. Among Cengage's major brands are Gale (formerly Thomson Gale) and Nelson Education (Nelson Canada, not Nelson USA Education).
Outline of OPE assets:
- Affinia Group Inc. (20%) -- aftermarket car parts manufacturer
- Vue Cinemas (bought in 2013 with Alberta Investment Management Corporation for £935 million)
- Cari-All Group Inc. -- shopping cart and shelving manufacturer
- CHG Healthcare Services -- provider of locum tenens (temporary physician staff)
- Constellation Software Inc. (34%) -- vertical market software maker
- Cookie Jar Group (formerly Cinar) -- television production and educational material publisher
- Cookie Jar Education
- Carson-Dellosa -- classroom educational material publisher/manufacturer
- HighReach Learning -- retail educational material publisher/manufacturer
- Cookie Jar Entertainment
- DIC Entertainment (to merge in late 2008)
- KidsCo (33.3%) -- children's television channel
- DIC Entertainment (to merge in late 2008)
- Cookie Jar Education
- Faiveley Transport -- railroad equipment manufacturer
- Give and Go Prepared Foods Corp. -- Toronto wholesale bakery
- Golf Town -- largest Canadian golf retailer
- Honsel International Technologies (partly owned since 2004) -- auto part metal manufacturer
- Husky Injection Molding Systems (partly owned since 2011) - Injection molding systems manufacturer
- Jostens
- Marketwired -- press release firm
- MAAX Inc. (partly owned since 2004) -- bathtub and cabinet manufacturer
- Maxxam Analytics
- Nelson Education (Nelson Canada) (OMERS is majority owner, but brand is treated as part of Cengage Learning) -- education publisher
- Q9 Networks (partly owned since 2001) -- Internet infrastructure and data centre operator
- Sitel (formerly Client Logic) (9%) -- outsourced customer care and back office operations
- SunGard Data Systems Inc.
- TeraGo Networks Inc. -- wireless broadband Internet service provider
- Trident Exploration Corp. -- natural gas (coalbed methane) exploration in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
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- Warner Chilcott (less than 5%) -- pharmaceutical company
- Xantrex (partly owned since 1999) -- power inverter manufacturer
See also
- Canada Pension Plan
- Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan
References
External links
- Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System Act, 2006 -- Ontario government edition
- OMERS -- main site
- Major Investments -- lists investments, including bonds and major public companies
- OMERS Capital Partners -- private equity site, including private funds and directly funded companies
Source of article : Wikipedia
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