Bonus Pensionskasse, the Austrian multi-employer pension fund owned by insurers Zürich and Generali, has taken over the provident fund fair-finance Vorsorgekasse, it announced last week.

Bonus signed an agreement on 30 September with the Sinnova Group to take over the provident fund founded in 2010 by Markus Zeilinger together with a group of private individuals, the GLS Bank and Concordia Insurance.

Fair-finance is part of Sinnova Group, whose holding company, majority-owned (80%) by a group of investors, financial experts and social entrepreneurs, was also founded by Zeilinger.

Bonus will integrate fair-finance in the provident fund Bonus Vorsorgegasse, founded in 2002 to manage severance payments (Ab­fertigung Neu).

The two provident funds could find synergies in responsible investments, as fair-finance tends to look at ESG criteria and impact investments in its strategy when investing members’ money. Fair-finance Vorsorgekasse currently manages around €1bn for 570,000 beneficiaries, it said.

“The takeover of fair-finance is a great opportunity for us to take a significant step forward in terms of growth in a very tight market environment. Like us, fair-finance stands for sustainable responsibility,” said Georg Daurer, member of the management board at Bonus Pensionskassen.

He added: “In the future, we will invest the money of over two million members entitled to benefits, transparently, as part of our legal mandate to provide severance pay.”

With the acquisition, Bonus Vorsorgekasse increases its market share to approximately 14%, and assets under management to around €2.7bn. Fair-finance has a market share of 5.5%, according to the pension scheme.

Assets under management of provident funds in Austria stood at €19.80bn, and the number of people entitled to pensions is around 11 million, according to Austria’s Financial Market Authority (FMA).

The number of provident funds in Austria goes down to seven following the merger of fair-finance with Bonus Vorsorgekasse.

After the deal closes, fair-finance will initially remain a separate company. There will be no changes to contracts and conditions, said Michael Scherhammer, member of the management board at Bonus Vorsorgekasse.

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Luigi is IPE's Berlin-based DACH correspondent. His coverage includes regulation and the latest pensions and investments trends, and, being a native Italian, he also covers Italy’s pensions market. He has reported from Italy and Germany on international politics and business for European and US publications including USA Today, Bloomberg BNA and for the investigative magazine L’Espresso. He was previously Germany correspondent for Mergermarket covering M&A.View full Profile

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