MOOSE JAW - The City of Moose Jaw’s investment portfolios gained more than $650,000 during this year’s second quarter, while they have generated nearly $30 million since they were invested five years ago.
During city council’s Aug. 26 regular meeting, the investment committee presented a report dealing with the second-quarter results. Council then voted unanimously to receive and file the document.
The report showed that there was $79,001,332.15 in the long-term portfolio and $25,387,952.54 in the moderate-term portfolio as of June 30, for a total of $104,389,284.69.
Long-term portfolio
From April 1 to June 30, the long-term portfolio grew by 0.56 per cent and generated $436,064.55. This increased the portfolio to $79,001,332.15 from $78,565,267.60.
Moderate-term portfolio
From April 1 to June 30, the moderate-term portfolio grew by 0.85 per cent and generated $219,634.10. This increased the portfolio to $26,775,103.54, but because the city withdrew $1,387,151 for capital funding, that reduced the portfolio to $25,387,952.54.
Combined, both portfolios gained $655,698.65, but because of the capital investment withdrawal, the overall loss was $731,452.35.
Since the inception of the portfolios in 2019, they have provided total returns of $29,566,564.96, which is equal to about 84 percentage points of municipal taxation, considering one percentage point this year is $352,448.77.
Bylaw amendment
During the Aug. 26 regular meeting, council also gave three unanimous readings to an amendment to Bylaw 5723, City Administration Bylaw Amendment, which updates the investment policy. Those changes — — include:
- Adding definitions about guaranteed investment certificates (GICs) and the Canadian Insurance Deposit Corporation (CDIC)
- With the fixed income pool, the committee considered listing restrictions as “redundant,” so it removed them since they were already on a chart in the policy. Meanwhile, the committee added a national bank, a $100,000 limit per CDIC user and increased the weighting of the overall portfolio to 100 per cent
- With the moderate- and long-term portfolios, the committee set issuer maximums at 10 per cent of the entire portfolio or 15 per cent of the asset class while it removed “the redundant information” under cash, fixed income and equities
- The committee added “non-investment grade bonds” as a sub-category under “other considerations” since members thought it was important to list such considerations even though RBC doesn’t list them in its internal policy
During the August meeting, finance director Brian Acker explained that these changes reflect “best practices” in the industry and occurred because of a review that portfolio manager RBC Dominion Securities conducted.
“We started in 2019, so five years have gone by. It’s time to review. We did that,” he said. “Also, many of these changes are an attempt to streamline our policy with our portfolio provider. They have their own policy. So this is an alignment with them.”
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Sept. 9.
