Ailing pensions provider Syntrus Achmea Pensioenbeheer is expected to be profitable in 2018 after nine consecutive years of losses, according to its parent company’s executive chairman.
Commenting on Achmea’s first-half results, Willem van Duin said its pensions management division would make a profit next year after ceasing its loss-making services to mandatory industry-wide pension funds.
Last year, Syntrus Achmea Pensioenbeheer incurred a €22.5m loss, after making similar losses each year since 2008.
As of 2018, Syntrus Achmea Pensioenbeheer will only offer services to company pension funds, non-mandatory sector schemes and occupational pension funds.
Recently, it emerged that all 22 industry-wide schemes that had to leave Syntrus Achmea before 2019, had found a new provider. Only two decided to stay with Syntrus Achmea.
Last November, Syntrus Achmea – the Netherlands’ largest pensions administrator – announced that it would cease servicing mandatory sector schemes because its new IT system could not cope with their complicated pension arrangements.
Achmea’s first half figures revealed that the operational result on pensions provision had already improved, in part due to the launch of a general pension fund (APF) by its insurance subsidiary Centraal Beheer.
It said that the Centraal Beheer APF had acquired new business and had to invest less as its starting-up phase had ended.
Achmea added that it had also received higher fees from existing pension fund clients as they had increased in scale.
The company reported that its umbrella division of Old Age Provision, which includes Achmea Bank and Achmea Investment Management, made a €4m profit during the first six months of this year, against a €13m loss during the same period of 2016.
Thanks to new clients for the Centraal Beheer APF, Achmea IM saw its assets under management increase from €116bn to €117bn year-to-date.
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