It isn't out with the old for Canadian pension plan executives in this new year, as trends impacting plan management in 2019 are expected to continue or grow in 2020, sources said.

Among the trends expected to most impact the industry this year are:

• Continuing opportunities for long-range pension planning as strong investment returns in 2019 improved funding levels for defined-benefit plans in the new year;
• Additional provinces allowing pension plan fund accounting to be based on a going-concern, or ongoing, basis rather than a one-year solvency formula;
• An enhancement of the trend among direct benefit plan executives in using outsourced chief investment officer platforms or consolidating their plans; and
• An increase in the use of defined contribution or hybrid plan structures like target-benefit funds with both defined-benefit and defined-contribution elements.

Pension plan executives will do some "expectations management" in 2020, said Scott MacDonald, director, investments, at Willis Towers Watson PLC in Toronto. "Every asset class has had a long bull run, a 10-year bull run, so they might think every decision they made was perfect," MacDonald said. "But 2019 wasn't a normal year. What [pension executives] need to do is look for diversity in their portfolio so that they can stay robust no matter what happens."

Jana Steele, partner, pension and benefits, at the law firm of Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLC in Toronto, said the trends toward hybrid plan structures and going-concern funding rules will continue not only for the coming year but for the foreseeable future, driven more by efforts to keep retirement plans "more sustainable."