VBV, Austria’s largest multi-employer Pensionskasse, has widened its lead in the market after securing one of the country’s last remaining standalone corporate pension funds.
IBM Austria has become the latest employer to shift its pension fund into the multi-employer system. VBV, which manages about €9.5bn, won the public tender to take on the pension assets of IBM’s Austrian workforce.
According to Austria’s Financial Market Authority, the IBM Pensionskasse held €556m in assets and had more than 1,700 members in 2024, most of them already retired.
VBV chief executive officer Günther Schiendl confirmed to IPE that the fund will “surpass the €10bn mark” once the IBM assets are integrated.
“Winning this bid confirms our successful acquisition of new business over the years,” Schiendl said.
VBV has absorbed more than €1bn in assets and around 30,000 members from Austrian company pension funds over the past two decades.
“Serving multinational corporations is a challenge which helps us improve our own offerings and strategies,” Schiendl added. “Taking on IBM shows that we can offer the flexibility and individualisation such major corporations need in running their pension plans.”
Two stand-alone schemes left
Once IBM’s pension fund transfers into the VBV Pensionskasse, only two company pension plans will remain independent in Austria. They are the €1.4bn Bundespensionskasse for federal employees and civil servants, and the nearly €400m Pensionskasse der Sozialversicherungsanstalt for staff at social security agencies.
IBM did not provide specific reasons for outsourcing its scheme. Elsewhere, such decisions have typically been driven by growing regulatory complexity and rising administration costs linked to asset management.
Performance has also played a role. Company pension funds have generally trailed multi-employer schemes. In 2024, the three remaining company funds delivered 3.7% annualised returns, compared with 8.2% for multi-employer Pensionskassen.
The exception was 2022, when company schemes posted slightly smaller losses (-8.6% versus -9.8%).
Most of the more than 10 corporate Pensionskassen previously operating in Austria have already been folded into multi-employer providers, sometimes split across several funds for state-owned entities.
Over the past decade, VBV has taken on pension schemes from EVN (2017), Porsche (2019) and Siemens (2022).
There are currently no plans to dissolve the two remaining independent schemes. In particular, the Bundespensionskasse includes employment contracts that mandate pension fund membership.
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