NETHERLANDS – Dutch pension manager MN Services has named Wouter Pelser as co-head of asset management in a bid to enhance efficiency.

Pelser – formerly deputy head of asset management - will join Roelf Pater and focus on equity, fixed income and treasury. Pater will run real estate and alternative investments.

In his new role Pelser will join the management team of the business unit asset management, of which Pater is already a member.

“The change of management structure is in line with our far reaching ambitions of providing high level service for existing and potential customers,” MN said.

MN Services has been offering the implementation of pensions, board support and asset management for institutional investors for more than 55 years.

With assets under management of €26.5bn, MN is the third largest manager of pension assets in the Netherlands.

Meanwhile the chairman of Cordares - the recently renamed pension fund for the building industry - has fiercely criticized the financial buffers as part of the future financial assessment framework, or FTK, for the pensions industry.

According to Joep Schouten, the rules will seriously harm the national economy.

The regulator De Nederlandsche Bank wants a coverage ratio of less than 105% be repaired within a year, and raised to 130% within 15 years. “A buffer of 30% means that the enormous amount of €180bn will remain out of the Dutch economy,” Schouten said in the Dutch daily Het Financieele Dagblad.

“Those billions will mainly be invested abroad, even outside Europe. This will go at the expense of our growth potential”.

“What’s more, the raised pension premiums can’t be invested or spent either. This will slow down domestic demand and the growth of the economy, and will cause a lack of consumer confidence”, Schouten added. “The too strict financial buffers will lead to an over-the-top security and certainly to a smaller pension”.

Meanwhile, the pre- pension issue is causing unrest within the Dutch civil service, writes the daily De Volkskrant. After the government has decided to cut the tax breaks on the present schemes, the unions are trying to find compensation in new collective labour agreements.

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