Longtime Alberta bureaucrat Ray Gilmour has been appointed interim leader of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation, the Crown agency set up to manage public pensions and investments at arm’s-length from government.

The province says the move comes "after years of AIMCo consistently failing to meet its mandated benchmark returns." For now, Finance Minister Nate Horner has been appointed the AIMCo board's sole director and chair.

Ray Gilmour, the province’s top deputy minister and secretary to cabinet, will take over as head of the pension fund, sources say

Alberta’s government named a long-serving bureaucrat as interim chief executive officer of the province’s pension fund manager following Thursday’s shock firing of the entire board.