Mutual Funds Data

1. Contract Award Notice (ACAN)

An ACAN is a public notice indicating to the supplier community that a department or agency intends to award a contract for goods, services or construction to a pre-identified supplier, thereby allowing other suppliers to signal their interest in bidding, by submitting a statement of capabilities. If no supplier submits a statement of capabilities that meets the requirements set out in the ACAN, on or before the closing date stated in the ACAN, the contracting officer may then proceed with the award to the pre-identified supplier.

2. Definition of the requirement

Statistics Canada (StatCan) requires a database that can provide complete access to current financial flows and portfolio holdings of Canadian mutual funds and Exchange traded funds (ETFs). More specifically, the database will help to evaluate the mutual funds sector (including ETFs) within the Canadian System of National Accounts.

REQUIREMENTS/TASKS

The database will help to evaluate the mutual funds sector (including ETFs) within the Canadian system of national accounts by:

• Providing data on various mutual funds and ETFs investment vehicles such as preferred stock, corporate bonds, mutual fund units, commercial paper, time deposits, income trusts, property, REITs, money market mutual fund units, ETFs units, swaps, forwards, commodities, currency, etc.
• Providing data necessary to evaluate mutual funds and ETFs financial transactions such as face value, number of shares, etc.
• Providing administrative data on Canadian mutual funds and ETFs such as CSFIC categories, inception date, obsolete data, portfolio currency, fund legal type, fund country of domicile, etc.

Deliverable

On the 10th business day of each month, the contractor will provide Statistics Canada with the most current Canadian mutual funds and ETFs administrative and holding data in 7 (seven) .xml files.

3. Criteria for assessment of the Statement of Capabilities (Minimum Essential Requirements)

Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that it meets the following requirements:

• The supplier must own and be able to provide complete information for funds including monthly and quarterly breakdown of all mutual fund assets by type of asset on an instrument by instrument basis covering estimates for the Open-end, Load Waived, Money Market, Exchange Traded Fund, Variable annuity/life Underlying Fund, Variable annuity/life Subaccount, Separate Account universes;
• The supplier must provide information for all financial investments of each fund including a granular breakdown of their asset holdings. This must include complete coverage of each fund’s portfolio of all holdings by instrument at the lowest level of counterparty. Additionally, theses comprehensive fund holdings must be accompanied by key variables such as number of shares, face value, issue date / maturity date, and cusip.
• The supplier’s source of data must come from a comprehensive collection vehicle (i.e., survey) of mutual fund companies, custodians, managers and transfer agents, and the survey universe must cover at least 90% of the total mutual funds and 97% of Exchange Traded Funds universe;

• All fund deaths and births must be identifiable in the data provided
• The sample size for the survey must be at least 2,700 mutual funds annually;
• Estimates must be available monthly and quarterly, no later than 15 business days after the end of the reference period;
• Data must be provided in a standardized and structured format that can be transmitted to or otherwise obtained electronically as a package by Statistics Canada on a monthly basis and which contains all associated schemas and metadata

4. Applicability of the trade agreement(s) to the procurement

This procurement is subject to the following trade agreement(s):

• Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA)

This procurement is exempt from the following trade agreement(s):

• NAFTA- Data Collection Services are exempt under Chapter 10 Government Procurement, Section A- Scope and Coverage and National Treatment, Annex 1001.

• WTO-AGP - Data Collection Services are exempt as they are not included in the services offered by Canada (ANNEX 5) of the WTO-AGP.

Excerpt from Supply Manual regarding Canada’s bilateral trade agreements:

“In general, the Supply Manual refers only to NAFTA and the WTO-AGP, as procedural requirements of the other international trade agreements will be fulfilled following compliance to the procedural requirements of NAFTA and the WTO-AGP.” Therefore it is assumed the exceptions apply to Canada’s bilateral trade agreements as well.

5. Justification for the Pre-Identified Supplier

There are no other sources available which have the detail, quality, and coverage that is needed for the estimation of the National Economic Accounts Division (NEAD)’s estimates of the Mutual Funds sector in the National Balance Sheets (NBSA) and the Financial Flow Accounts (FFA). Moreover, the cost to replicate the data in-house via a survey or other similar collection activity would far exceed the contract price.

Morningstar, with its unique survey of mutual funds investment managers, transfer agents and custodians, is the only provider of information on mutual fund financial data in Canada that has the necessary level of detail, comprehensiveness, and timeliness necessary for the estimation of the Mutual Funds sector in the National Balance Sheets (NBSA) and the Financial Flow Accounts (FFA). Moreover, the cost to replicate the data in-house via a survey or other similar collection activity would far exceed the contract price. These data are critical in constructing estimates of assets, liabilities, and financial flows related to mutual funds in Canada in the Canadian National accounts and currently constitute a data gap in the data collected by Statistics Canada. The data sets offered by Morningstar are required to fulfill Statistics Canada’s objective of producing a quarterly set of accounts by all institutional sectors.

Morningstar possesses the following which is imperative to the requirement:

• The contractor owns and is able to provide a detailed monthly breakdown of mutual funds and Exchanges traded funds portfolio. The portfolio present each individual holding held by each funds, the holding type, holding market value, holding cusip, holding currency and country of domicile, holding number of share, holding’ face value, holding’ s maturity date, etc.
• The contractor provides administrative data on each funds (inception date, obsolete date, CIFSC categories, fund manager name, etc)
• Data comes from a survey of mutual fund investment custodians, managers and transfer agents and the survey universe.
• Estimates are available monthly and quarterly, files will be delivered on the 10th business day of the month in an xml format.

6. Government Contracts Regulations Exception(s)

The following exception(s) to the Government Contracts Regulations is invoked for this procurement under subsection 6(d) - "only one person is capable of performing the work".

7. Exclusions and/or Limited Tendering Reasons

The following exclusion(s) and/or limited tendering reasons are invoked:

CFTA - Article 513(b) – if the goods or services can be supplied only by a particular supplier and no reasonable alternative or substitute goods or services exist for any of the following reasons:

1. due to an absence of competition for technical reasons;

8. Period of the proposed contract or delivery date

The contract period will be for one (1) year plus four (4) additional one (1) year option periods.

9. Cost estimate of the proposed contract
The estimated value of the contract, including options, is $329,384.08 (GST/HST excluded).

10. Name and address of the pre-identified supplier

Morningstar Research Inc.

Toronto, Ontario

11. Suppliers' right to submit a statement of capabilities
Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the goods, services or construction services described in the ACAN may submit a statement of capabilities in writing to the contact person identified in this notice on or before the closing date of this notice. The statement of capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the advertised requirements.

12. Closing date for a submission of a statement of capabilities
The closing date and time for accepting statements of capabilities is December 6, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. EST).

13. Inquiries and submission of statements of capabilities

Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:
Name: Courtney Dauphinee

Title: Coordinator

Organization: Statistics Canada
Address: 150 Tunney’s Pasture Driveway, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0T6

Telephone: 613-402-7636

E-mail address: statcan.macs-bids-smc-soumissions.statcan@canada.ca