The Brussels-based €552m VKG-CPM Belgian pension fund for doctors, dentists and pharmacists, has established a new supplementary healthcare sector pension fund, ‘Amonis’, with a potential active membership of 250,000 employees.
The initiative is in line with the Belgian government’s desire to create industry sector funds for as many different professions as possible, under the forthcoming Vandenbroucke law.
Amonis, drawn from the Egyptian god Amon, creator of life and longevity, and the Latin verbs munire (protect) and munerare (offer), takes the form of both a Sicav and a mutual life insurance company.
The Sicav – significantly the first non-banking entity of its kind in Belgium, is open to both institutional and private investors within the healthcare sector.
The structure leverages off VKG’s experience in asset management and pensions services and consists of nine compartments with VKG overseeing the management, administration and actuarial services.
State Street will carry out the custody, performance measurement and portfolio analysis for the Sicav, while the range of seven fund managers includes Fiduciary Trust, Alliance Capital, Puilaetco and Singer & Friedlander.
Professions can either set up their own pension fund and join the Amonis structure or invest through the Sicav. Already the VIKIN pension scheme for some 24,000 kinesiologists in Belgium has joined Amonis.
The group is also in discussion with the VKA chemists sector on membership and other existing plans Amonis says it would like to bring on board include the country’s pharmacists.
Damiel Désir of the VKG/CPM, comments: “Our aim is to have distinct structures but synergies.”
The life insurance company Amonis Life, which has yet to be fully approved, will also leverage off existing VKG provision.
The firm says its initial target for insurance products will be the 100,000 plus member Belgian hospital sector.
Désir outlines the benefits of Amonis as a pensions group: “We are a not- for-profit organisation, so there are no shareholders to pay. One of the results of this is solidarity. CPM/VKG members also know that can ask any questions about their pension and get regular information at any time. “One of the other important aspects is that the structure means that charges will be reduced.”

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