Utrecht-based Origin pension fund, the former IT subsidiary of Dutch electronics group Phillips, will go live with a flexible DC top-up scheme on July 1. It has selected Schootse Poort, balanced asset management arm of the Philips group, Kempen Capital Management and Frank Russell to manage the assets.
Around 3,000 employees are expected to be part of the DC scheme, which covers workers with salaries of over Dfl80,000 a year.
And, according to Rene Upperman, managing director of the Origin pension fund, the start-up transfer capital of accrued pension rights from the company’s current DB arrangements to the new plan will be in the region of Dfl160m (e 72.6m).
“We are expecting to receive a further Dfl5m–6m in employee contributions per annum to the fund, with a slightly higher amount coming from the company – so the assets should grow quickly.
“Kempen Capital Management will manage Dutch small cap investments, having been selected due to prior management of the fund’s DB plan assets, and Frank Russell has a brief for US small caps because of their experience in managing DC plans and also for their multi-manager investment concept, which we shall be using.”
Origin runs a graduated pensions contribution system with payments of 5.5% of salary to workers below the age of 35 and 11% to those over 56, with incremental levels between.
Upperman adds that the new DC scheme has been designed with flexibility in mind. “A default model of the plan would show 65% of assets going to Schootse Poort, 25% to Kempen and 10% to Frank Russell.
“However investment decisions depend on the employee, with three choices available, which can be switched every three months – ‘Default’, ‘Personal Touch’, where an employee can invest 65% in bonds and 35% in equities or vice versa, and ‘Self-Select’, where an employee has seven funds to choose from, so an individual could have 100% equity investments if so desired.”

Topics