Plan sponsors may wish to consider whether this investment news has any implications for the investment options available within their plans. Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada purchases units of the fund listed below, which is established as a segregated fund in accordance with the Insurance Companies Act (Canada).
Effective January 1, 2018, Beutel Goodman (BG) changed the benchmark for the BG Canadian Small Cap Fund from the BMO Small Cap (Weighted) Index to the S&P/TSX Small Cap Total Return (TR) Index. BG has communicated that at inception of the Fund in the early 1990s, the Nesbitt Burns (now BMO) Small Cap Index was the index most commonly used because of the availability of index information. Over the years, BG found that this index has become increasingly uninvestable and have determined that the S&P/TSX Small Cap TR Index is now a more appropriate Canadian small cap benchmark.
Effective January 2, 2018, the BG Income Fund SIP&P was amended to make several changes to the Fund and the BG Balanced Fund SIP&P was amended for the fixed income component of the Fund. The intent of these changes was to update definitions and eligible securities to reflect today’s market, and to better align the Funds with the composition of their benchmarks. Amendments include updating eligible securities, updating the credit quality rating methodology, changing fund restrictions from hard limits to benchmark-relative limits, and the addition of the potential to use derivatives.
Questions?
Please contact your Sun Life Financial Group Retirement Services representative.
A copy of the revised SIP&P is available on Sun Life Financial’s Plan Sponsor Services website at www.sunlife.ca/sponsor. When logged into the website, under the Administration and Reporting tab, select Group Retirement Services, then on the top navigation menu select Investments>> Governance reports.
