€16bn Danish pension fund created as JØP/DIP full merger confirmed

Members of Danish engineering pension fund DIP have voted in favour of a proposed merger with fellow professional pension fund JØP at its annual general meeting (AGM).

DIP reported that 93% of its members voted in favour. It follows a similarly positive vote from JØP’s members last Wednesday.

DIP said that the last step remaining before the deal was finalised was the approval of the merger by relevant authorities.

The fund said that, if the fusion with the JØP, the fund for lawyers and economists, went through, its chairman Peter Falkenham would become deputy chair and JØP’s chairman Anders Eldrup would head up a new transitional supervisory board.

The new merged company will take the name given to the funds’ joint administrative body initiated back in 2015, P+. The two funds have been gradually merging various operations over recent years.

The deal will place the new pension fund among the top 10 largest funds in Denmark, according to IPE’s Top 1000 Pension Funds survey.

Between them the two funds have assets of DKK120bn (€16bn), a size that senior staff have said would allow the new entity to take advantage of economies of scale and reduce costs associated with investment, administration and other business operations.