BELGIUM - The Flemish public broadcaster, VRT, will drop Watson Wyatt Brussels as investment consultant for its two pension funds with a total of €430m assets under management.
The termination of the contract will take effect from March 1, VRT said in a statement.
The contract is for its €400m VRT pension fund for statutory personnel, which belongs to the first rather than the second pillar, and for the €30m VRT pension fund for contract employees.
The broadcaster said that its biggest fund will shortly be commissioning an asset liability management study. "The selection of a suitable candidate to conduct this study is in its final phase," said VRT.
Florent Verberckmoes, responsible for the funds' day-to-day management, said that VRT's board terminated the contract as other players in the market are more cost efficient and deliver more services.
The funds have not found another consultant yet.
No-one at Watson Wyatt Brussels was available for comment.
Elsewhere, the Belgian municipality of Herselt has appointed bank insurer Ethias with a €1.5m mandate to set up a pension fund for the council's managers, according to an official notification.
The fund can be compared to a so called ‘silver fund', acting as a pension reserve fund in order to make provision for expenditure linked to the expected rise in pension liabilities.
The council chose Ethias as the firm proved to be the most economically advantageous tenderer. No consultant was involved.
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