BC Investment Management Corporation (BCI), the public pension fund manager in this province increased compensation costs by 30% per dollar of funds managed in fiscal year 2017-2018. It already paid extravagant salaries before this latest fiscal year.
Remuneration of the five highest paid executives increased almost 16% in FY 2018. Remuneration of that group averaged $1.91 million per year, an increase of 184% since 2011. Inflation in the period was 11.5%.
In recent times, benefits provided to retired pensioners have been reduced, supposedly because returns on investments were insufficient to maintain them at prior levels.
Compare to Washington State Investment Board (WSIB), an agency that does similar functions:
Before you suppose that WSIB is an inferior organization, be aware that it manages C$170 billion in assets and its last reported annualized return was 17%.
Assets under management at BCI were C$145 billion as of March 2018 and the corporation reports its return for the year was 9%.
Unfortunately, salary comparisons continue down the line from the top executives. BCI has more people earning over $1 million annually than WSIB has earning over $320,000. BCI’s total salary costs were $118 million; at WSIB, the total was $12 million.
Examples of the changes in remuneration at BCI:
Guess which pension fund investment management agency paid its top executives 4x the other agency’s payments? #bcpoli #bcimchttps://t.co/uuCdZQjcl0 pic.twitter.com/PxnRYlVVgZ
— Norm Farrell, SD44 Board Candidate (@Norm_Farrell) September 10, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Categories: BC Investment
IN-SIGHTS 
Unfortunately, we get what we are prepared to put up with. If nobody complains and threatens to make some legal change, expect that remuneration to continue to climb. Obviously, no one cares anyway. When people cannot even be bothered to vote, how can we expect them to actually ask their MLA why is this happening and why have they not put a stop to it?
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Politicians are not involved in the operation of this corporation. Public sector unions are essentially responsible for nominating the board majority.
This is the BCi committee that recommends employee compensation:
Click to access bci-board-human-resources-and-governance-committee-april-2018.pdf
This is the board of directors that approves those recommendations:
https://www.bci.ca/who-we-are/governance/board-of-directors/board-members/
KPMG is listed as the corporation’s auditor.
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Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler?!?!?! That KPMG?!?!? Now there’s a bastion of ethics, morality, trustworthyness, honesty…
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Yep. That KPMG.
https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/columnists/les-leyne-report-critical-of-site-c-dam-generates-a-fuss-1.1616526
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Didn’t BC Hydro farm out their book keeping and accounting to someone like Aecon (some Yankee outfit)?
Why can’t we do the same for our investment management group. NOONE is worth $2 million a year, especially at taxpayers direct expense. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs (a lotta good that did him), perhaps Elon Musk, but we can choose NOT to reward them. We don’t have the luxury of choice with these….. (words fail me!)
Replace them with Washington State personnel, along with the Ferries management.
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I wonder no one from WA state ferries dont work for BCFerries .Same for BCIMC counterpart. Im sure they would work for 1/3 of salary.?Culture of entitlement train?
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The salary is most likely paid by the pension fund. If it had come from the tax payers things would have changed. These salaries were set with the B.C. Lieberals ruled, so I know why they decided to pay their friends these huge amounts from the workers’ pensions funds. What I want to know is why are the NDP and Greens permitting this to continue. Given Washington State is doing so well perhaps we could hire some of their people. In the meantime could some one call Mr. Eby to see what he can do about this fraud. Well with these high salaries we would have an expectation there would be high returns. Low returns, and high salary, I say if not fraud something akin to it, so calling Mr. Eby, calling Mr. Eby, and investigation might be in order.
To the UNIONS, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER AND PROTECT YOUR MEMBERS’ PENSION FUNDS.
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One additional difference between Washington and British Columbia, not mentioned by Norm, is that WA State publishes all salaries of WSIB, whereas BCI publishes only the top five.
The information can be found at http://fiscal.wa.gov/salaries
Select State Investment Board in the Agency dropdown.
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A theme through the previous posts;business as usual, I’m afraid.
The first two articles I read this morning were;
General Mills CEO annual compensation jumps to 7.97 million.
https://goo.gl/obwdtw
FIFA eliminates all reference to “corruption” from code of ethics and lowers punishment to “tsk, tsk, naughty boy.”
https://goo.gl/HEizma
The answer to it all is so simple; the lower 98% just have to work harder, pay more and rally ‘round buck-a-beer; we really are such a bunch of dupes.
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I wrote this in comments to Norm’s previous excellent work on this issue. It seems that the last paragraph may have been accurate.
“My wife receives a pension from the fund managed by this bunch. She received a notice of changes this summer that will cost us around $1,000 a year. Strangely, the notice did not include any fulsome explanation of why the changes might be necessary. With people like the CFO of Finning chairing the bcIMC Board that appointed Fyfe, and an executive vice-president and CFO of BC Hydro chairing the Board’s audit committee, one would think the talent should be there to be candid with the pensioners kneecapped in this manner.
While we’re thinking of the unexplained, here’s a chin-scratcher for you. Gordon Fyfe came to the bcIMC straight from his gig as CEO of the Public Sector Investment Board in Ottawa. According to page 65 of the 2014 annual report of that organization, his compensation for the years 2014, 2013, and 2012 was $4,206,983, $5,307,541, and $3,404,746 respectively.
http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/investpsp/CC511-2014-eng.pdf
Now, he was born in Victoria and according to his bio still has extended family there, which might make a return attractive. He does bear a striking resemblance to one Richard Fyfe, the author of the Basi/Virk payoff agreement we all know and love from the BC Rail trial. But is that and a nice waterfront office enough to take a $2,000,000 pay cut to leave Ottawa?
Or is the raise he got in his second year here a sign of much bigger rewards ahead? Time will tell. But don’t look to the MSM for details. Come back to Norm’s for those.”
https://in-sights.ca/2016/08/20/disvalue-for-money/
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Thanks Lew. That information, and the smokey skies, is enough to make you want to throw up.
One of the negative aspects of working for the Investment Board in the State of Washington is that it happens in tRumpland, USA. You’d think that, and the salary would prompt them to seek employment on this side of the border.
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