The €6.3bn pension fund PostNL is to split into two schemes – one for the postal service and a new one for packet delivery firm TNT Express.

The development follows a new pension plan for workers of PostNL – in force since last January – which differs greatly from the pension arrangements for TNT Express employees.

The pension fund said a single scheme could no longer provide both plans.

For the new set-up, the assets will be proportionally shared between both pension funds, with approximately 5% allocated to the new scheme of TNT Express.

However, the division does not apply to the recent additional contribution of €150m by PostNL to improve the scheme’s funding by 2.5 percentage points.

This also goes for the conditional pledge of €300m to plug a funding gap of no more than 1.25% of liabilities over the next four years.

Last February, Peter van Gameren, chairman of the Pensioenfonds PostNL, told IPE sister publication FD-IPNederland that a limit to the premium or additional contribution at TNT Express was not applicable.

“The obligation to plug funding gaps is unlimited,” he said.

A number of investments, including property, will remain with the PostNL scheme, as a division of the ownership would not be desirable, the scheme said.

Instead, the balance between both schemes would be settled in cash.

The returns on investments between 1 January 2014 and the legal division of assets will be proportionally shared between the pension funds, PostNL added.

The current pension fund PostNL has approximately 99,000 participants, of which 31,840 are active members and 23,935 are pensioners.

The scheme’s funding was 112.4% at March-end.

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