How are the pension contributions received in the past invested? What are the pension costs? And when are the pensions increased? All these questions relate to the policy of Pensioenfonds Ernst & Young in liquidatie.
The pensions are insured with Aegon, which is why the pension fund only invests its free capital. We do this because we believe investing to be more profitable than saving in the long term. In the annual report you can read more about the investment policy and the returns that we achieve.
Pensioenfonds Ernst & Young became a closed pension fund on 1 July 2018. The pension scheme that we had up to this date was a CDC scheme (Collective Defined Contribution scheme). The most important aspect of this scheme is that the employer pays the contributions, which the pension fund uses to finance the pension scheme. After payment of the contributions, the employer is under no obligation to provide additional payments, but is not entitled to any payment from the pension fund either.
We use the annual price inflation as a base for the indexation. The pension result indicates the stability (or purchasing power) of the pension. If the pension result is 100%, the pensions grow in tandem with the inflation on an average annual base. However, if the pension result is less than 100%, the pensions won't retain their full value. If the economy continues to develop normally, we expect that the pension result for the population as a whole will be 80% in the long term. This means that, in the long term, we can increase the pensions with approximately 60% of the inflation. However, if the market conditions turn out to be worse than expected, we estimate that the pension result will be 25% lower. This means that, in this case, we can increase the pensions with approximately 30% of the inflation. However, the Board annually decides to what extent the pension rights and pension entitlements are adjusted. There is no reserve for this provisional indexation. The indexation is financed using the returns on investment.