File photo of George Cope, chief executive of BCE Inc. Michael Boychuk, chief executive officer of in-house pension fund manager Bimcor, is preparing to leave the company in June after 18 years spent in several roles.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
BCE Inc. is shaking up its in-house pension fund manager Bimcor Inc., laying off several employees as a long-time leader retires.
Michael Boychuk, chief executive officer of Bimcor, is preparing to leave the company in June after 18 years spent in several roles. With his departure, Bimcor is outsourcing some investment management responsibilities in an effort to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Bimcor, which has more than $19-billion in assets, is being folded into BCE's internal treasury and finance team in Montreal. The Toronto fixed-income office has been closed, and the team of fewer than 10 professionals working there was let go in the process. Investmet management responsibilities have been turned over to Phillips Hager & North (PH&N), which was bought by Royal Bank of Canada's asset management arm in 2008, according to a spokesperson for the bank.
This is the latest step in Bimcor's move toward external portfolio management, which began more than five years ago when new money managers were sought for the majority of the fund's Canadian and U.S. equity and fixed-income investments.
Mr. Boychuk has been with BCE since 1997 and worked as the treasurer of BCE and Bell Canada for a decade until 2009. Before that, he led the company's venture capital arm, BCE Capital.
Mr. Boychuk's exit comes alongside other changes within BCE's finance team. Chief financial officer Siim Vanaselja passes the torch to Glen LeBlanc, former CFO of Bell Aliant, at the end of June.
BCE declined to comment on the specific changes within the fixed income team, but a spokesman said the company's focus would continue to be on reducing risk in the pension plan while maximizing returns for Bell retirees.
Last year, BCE made a voluntary pension plan contribution of $350-million, which the company said was "an efficient use of cash that aligns the privatized Bell Aliant plan and reduces the amount of BCE's future pension payments."
And in recent months, BCE moved to transfer $5-billion in pension risk, on the chance that its beneficiaries will live longer than expected, over to Sun Life Financial Inc. That deal doesn't change BCE's role as the provider of both defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension plans for employees.