Vestcor Inc. – Response to Auditor General’s Report | February 23, 2021

Vestcor Inc. (Vestcor) confirms that it has received periodic requests from the Province of New Brunswick’s Auditor General with respect to the Auditor General’s oversight of public entities.

Our organization is not a public entity or a significant recipient of public funding, but a private not-for-profit corporation controlled by its independent member organizations, the New Brunswick Public Service Pension Plan and the New Brunswick Teachers’ Pension Plan. Vestcor is also specifically designated through the Vestcor Act as not being an agent of the Crown.

Vestcor provides services under contracts entered into with, and has a fiduciary duty to, its clients requiring it to comply with all rules, regulations, and contractual obligations to which we are legally subject. Our analysis and advice have indicated that the Auditor General should be much more limited with respect to access to Vestcor related information than what had been requested, and we therefore have had to respectfully decline these requests to ensure we can continue to fulfill our contractual and other commitments to our clients.

We recognize that the Office of Auditor General performs an important function by providing oversight of public funds and of the government’s performance in its delivery of programs and services. Vestcor has met with the Auditor General to provide details on our ownership structure, our status as a private corporation operating outside government, and on the considerable amount of publicly available information which is provided to our stakeholders.

It is important to point out that, in addition to providing reporting that meets the requirements of its clients, Vestcor provides a significant amount of public disclosure in line with industry best practices and is subject to financial services regulatory oversight by the Financial and Consumer Services Commission. Detailed investment performance, operational results, compensation analysis and disclosure, and externally audited financial reporting information is available through our Annual Report and other related documents on our website vestcor.org.

About Vestcor

Vestcor’s team of approximately 140 New Brunswick-based service professionals provides innovative, cost-effective investment management and pension and benefits administration services solutions.

Located in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Vestcor provides as of December 31, 2020:

• Global investment management services to nine different client groups representing approximately $19.4 billion in assets under management; and
• Administration services to 11 pension plans and 5 employee benefits plans, representing approximately 99,000 individual members and 140 employer groups.

Please feel free to direct any questions or request hard copies of Vestcor’s annual reports through info@vestcor.org.