Loek Sibbing has announced that he is to step down as chairman of Univest Company, the €20bn asset manager for the 80 pension funds of multinational company Unilever, on 1 June.

Sibbing has spent the last four years managing Univest Company, having worked as director of Progress, Unilever’s €4.5bn Dutch pension fund, for five years.

The scheme closed in 2013 with a funding ratio of 139% and is one of the pension funds with the best financial positions in the Netherlands.

Sibbing said he would now take on “new challenges” and that he wanted to share his experience and expertise with other companies.

He said it was too early to make further announcements about the next step of his career.

Before Sibbing joined Unilever, he was director of the pension fund of building company Volker Wessels.

Between 2005 and 2010, he was chairman of the Foundation for Company Pension Funds (OPF), which is now part of the Pensions Federation.

Sibbing said there would not be a successor for him at Univest Company, which is to reduce its leadership team to Mark Walker, global CIO, and Frans Meerveld, chief operations and risk officer.