Denmark’s Pensionskassen for Apotekere og Farmaceuter, the pension fund for pharmacists, has been taken over by the country’s biggest commercial provider PFA, with the professional fund’s DKK1.5bn (€201m) of pension savings being transferred.

As part of the shift, which took effect on 1 April having been agreed at the pension fund’s general meeting in December, all members’ plans will change to unit-linked savings products from traditional with-profits plans.

The move includes around 2,000 scheme members and annual contributions of about DKK65m.

Jesper Gulev Larsen, chairman of the pharmacists’ pension fund, said: “We have, after careful consideration, chosen PFA as future pension provider for our members.”

He said the fund had had a “very positive dialogue with PFA” and was confident customers’ savings would be safe with the company.

The pension fund has been looking into the possibility of moving members’ plans to another, larger company since 2013, PFA said.

“As Denmark’s smallest pension fund, in the long run, we cannot live up to our members’ natural expectations of their pension provider,” said Larsen Gulev. “It is to our customers’ clear advantage to move the scheme to PFA.”

He stressed that the pension fund had in no way been forced into a marriage of convenience with PFA, but that the requirements from authorities as a pension fund grows made it difficult for small institutions to deliver a competitive product.

PFA said the new pension customers would come under one umbrella within the organisation as its existing customers in the pharmaceutical field: professional association Pharmadanmark, the Danish Pharmaceutical Association and Pharmakon – the Danish College of Pharmacy Practice.

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