Fired AIMCo chair disputes Alberta’s narrative on costs in letter to Horner

financialpost.com:

The former interim chair of Alberta Investment Management Corp. has written a letter to the Alberta cabinet minister who fired him last week to dispute what he calls an “incorrect narrative” and “misinformation” about the performance of the asset manager and Crown corporation.

In a letter to Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner that was viewed by the Financial Post, Kenneth Kroner disputes the data and a number of assertions used to justify the government’s “reset” at AIMCo, which saw the entire board of directors, including Kroner, as well as chief executive Evan Siddall, removed from their posts. The letter goes on to say that while the government is within its rights to replace the board, the faulty narrative that AIMCo’s costs are out of control will make things difficult for the next board and management team.

“Over the last week, there have been numerous public statements made about AIMCo’s performance and costs,” wrote Kroner, who was on the board of AIMCo for eight years and had been acting chair since the beginning of this year. “I have concerns that these are tarnishing AIMCo’s reputation, which will only make it harder for Albertans to have confidence in the public asset manager, and will create unnecessary barriers for AIMCo in its goal to deliver strong investment performance for Albertans.”

Contrary to skyrocketing costs and poor performance, he said AIMCo is a low-cost manager compared to similar funds and has “solidly” exceeded benchmarks over the years.

“The data contradicts the very negative narrative that is out there,” Kroner wrote in the letter, which was also sent to the government’s bipartisan standing committee on the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, which is managed by AIMCo.

“The