The €230m pension fund for the Dutch plastics and rubber industry is to join €21bn multi-sector scheme PGB after it failed to attract a sufficient number of participating companies.

The social partners at the non-mandatory Pensioenfonds Kunststof & Rubberindustrie and PGB signed a declaration of intent that will see the smaller scheme join PGB next year.

The pension fund Kunststof & Rubber has 7,240 participants in total, of whom 2,300 are workers, affiliated with 60 companies.

As a consequence of its small scale, its costs for pensions provision were three times as high as those for large sector funds, it said.

In 2014, it spent €286 for each worker and pensioner.

The pension fund said it was also facing the expensive renewal of its insured pension arrangements with Aegon at the end of this year.

The accrued pension rights remain with Aegon, which has guaranteed the nominal rights but will not grant any indexation.

Last year, the scheme was able to grant its participants an inflation compensation of 0.1%.

In a letter to its pensioners, the board of Kunststof & Rubber said the liquidation decision had been taken after the unions and sponsors failed to reach an agreement on a proposal to continue as an independent scheme, an option favoured by employees.

As of next year, new employers can join the sector arrangements at PGB, which was initially the scheme for the graphics and printing industry.

Over the past five years, however, it has expanded into other industries, including the chemical, cardboard and pharmaceutical sectors – and it has even taken the maritime fishing industry on board.

At the moment, it implements pension arrangements for 2,300 companies with 66,000 staff in a total in 14 sectors.

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