ASR grows consolidation vehicle with €1.2bn pension client

The €1.2bn Dutch pension fund of temporary employment agency Randstad is to join Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds, the consolidation vehicle of ASR.

It is the second fund to announce such a move this week, after the €900m Owase pension fund announced its intention to move to Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds.

As of next year, the closed Randstad scheme will be housed in an individual compartment at the general pension fund (APF) of the Dutch insurer.

As a consequence of the new acquisition, Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds will become the biggest APF in the Netherlands in terms of members, with 7,000 compared to the 6,000 members of Stap, Aegon’s consolidation vehicle. 

Its assets will increase to €3.5bn, putting it in second place behind Stap, which has €6bn assets under management.

Randstad is the third scheme with assets of approximately €1bn to join ASR’s vehicle, alongside Owase and the €1.1bn pension fund of engineering firm Acadis, which announced its move last year.

José Suarez Menendez, chair of Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds, said the vehicle’s strict admittance policy was starting to bear fruit.

“We have held off smaller schemes wanting an individual compartment, as this wouldn’t be viable for the longer term,” he said.

He added that Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds operated a separate section that was open to smaller pension funds and employer pension plans. This section has six clients, including the schemes of attraction park De Efteling and insurer DAS.

According to the Randstad scheme, confidence and a “cultural match” were important reasons for selecting the ASR subsidary.

It said that, at Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds, its actuarial calculations – and with it its liabilities – could remain unchanged, while it could also retain its policies for investment and inflation-linked payments.

Also in favour of the APF was that it worked with Kempen Capital Management, the fiduciary manager of the Randstad scheme.

The contract with Het Nederlandse Pensioenfonds has been agreed for an indefinite period.

Suarez Menendez said the governance arrangement was pension funds’ main reason to choose his consolidation vehicle.

“Through our own administrative bureau, we develop our own policy, independent from our founder and provider ASR,” he explained.

The chair also highlighted the APF’s asset management approach with Kempen as independent fiduciary manager. Most other APFs use asset managers owned by their parent companies, he said.

He said his APF expected more schemes to join “as there is a lot of market movement since last summer”.

“We are currently talking with several players with more than €1bn of assets,” he said, adding that some had shown an interest in joining a multi-client compartment.