The €1.1bn pension fund of Dutch engineering firm Arcadis is to move its pension plan to Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds, the general pension fund (APF) of insurer ASR.
In a statement, ASR said that the pension arrangements of the Arcadis Pensioenfonds will be placed in an individual compartment at the APF.
The Arcadis pension plan will get its own stakeholders body with representatives of the employer, its 2,100 staff, and 2,600 pensioners. The pension fund also has 3,200 deferred participants.
Commenting on the transfer, Bram Mommers, chairman of the Arcadis Pensioenfonds, indicated it was increasingly difficult for a company to keep its own pension fund up and running.
“Following increasingly complicated legal requirements, the employer must put in more energy, while risks and implementation costs keep on rising and the options for offering distinguishable pension arrangements are decreasing,” he said
Gert Kroon, director of Arcadis Netherlands, said the decision to join the APF was the result of three years of intensive research, during which time all possible scenarios were investigated.
“Besides the most matching offer in terms of service, fees and conditions, Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds also shares our view of the most important values, including independency and individuality, for a pensions organisation,” Kroon said.
Earlier this year, the pension fund said it expected “to benefit from the professionalism, lower costs and solidity of a larger organisation, while keeping sufficient say over our pensions”.
It also said it preferred an APF of a commercial player to a general pension fund run with other schemes, “as the latter will take up much time and money”.
The scheme argued that co-operation between pension funds “has seldom turned out to be successful”.
No comments yet