Pension manager's record $725K pay likely even higher in 2014

Record salary and bonus pay to New Brunswick government pension managers in 2013 were likely even higher in 2014 government records suggest.

In December, the Office of the Comptroller released information on salaries paid to provincial government employees in 2013.

It included record pay to John Sinclair, the president and chief executive officer of the New Brunswick Investment Management Corp., of more than $725,000, more than four times the salary of Premier Brian Gallant.

Sinclair's pay is routinely the highest in government and was heavily boosted by his share of a $1.7-million incentive and bonus pool paid out to certain NBIMC employees in 2013.

The corporation has already acknowledged the bonus pool increased 27 per cent to $2.2 million in 2014.

"NBIMC believes that employees are key to the performance of the corporation and is committed to providing … competitive compensation," the body states in its latest annual report.

"NBIMC also believes that the achievement of its mission will be facilitated by having meaningful alignment between employees’ interests and the interests of its clients."

The New Brunswick Investment Management Corp. is a small Crown corporation of fewer than 40 employees responsible for investing New Brunswick government pension funds.

A 58 per cent growth in those funds to more than $11 billion during the past five years has boosted incentive pay among top executives at the corporation substantially.

Figures released by the comptroller's office show that as a group, Sinclair and his four most senior managers — James Scott, Jan Imeson, Dan Goguen and Mark Holleran — earned an average of $423,000 each in 2013.

That's 61 per cent more than the same group earned in 2009, despite widespread pay restraint imposed throughout government.  

The increases are fuelled mostly by a complex system of incentive pay set up by NBIMC's board of directors that has grown substantially in recent years.

The $2.2 million paid out in 2014 is double the amount paid in 2007, and quadruple what was paid in 2002.