The €200m Dutch pension fund of chemicals giant BASF has said it is planning to place its accrued pension rights with insurer Aegon. 

Its board said it decided to hire the insurer following the expiration of the contract for pensions provision with its own company scheme last January.

BASF has already contracted out the management of new pensions accrual to Avéro Achmea as of January.

Last summer, the pension fund decided not to continue as a closed scheme but rather transfer pension rights to an insurer.

The funding of the BASF scheme – 118% at the end of the second quarter – allowed it to negotiate a fixed annual indexation of 1.17% at Aegon.

The transfer to Aegon is still subject to regulator approval.

In other news, the €848m pension fund for notaries’ staff (SBMN) has said a planned merger with the €1.2bn pension fund for notaries (SNPF) has been postponed until 2016.

According to SBMN, the delay was caused by the fact the ministries of Justice and Social Affairs could not implement the required legal changes in time.

Stijn Marks, the pension fund’s chairman, said both schemes had already started to adjust their asset management and interest hedges, and that they were also trying to align their coverage ratios.

Currently, the funding of SBMN and SNPF is 109.1% and 108%, respectively.

Both pension funds had to implement rights cuts in recent years to keep their coverage at the minimum required level of 105%.

According to Eric Greup, chairman at SNPF, the merger would lead to annual costs savings of between €2m and €3m, and that most gains would be made in asset management and governance.

“Therefore, we will thoroughly assess all contracts with external parties, such as providers, accountants and advisers,” he said.

At year-end, SBMN had 22,313 participants in total, of which 6,377 are employees and 2,348 pensioners.

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