How is TNO Pension Fund doing?
Kostijn van Gerven, TNO Pension Fund’s Director, shares his vision of the developments over the past months. What stood out and what does this mean for our pension fund?
Dear reader,
2020 was a very strange year in many respects. We’ve all been working at home since March 2020 as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. At the start we were a bit apprehensive: would be we able to run all these processes from home? Will we be able to hold meetings at home sitting at the computer? And maybe most importantly: can the organizations that carry out our most important processes deliver our services at the required level?
It took some getting used to for everyone, I think, but we quickly managed to get everything up and running. There was a little more flexibility in the summer months, and we were able to work partially from the office again and the Management Board came together in person for some meetings. But when the ‘second wave’ arrived in the autumn, we largely had to start working from home again and holding meeting digitally.
The stock exchange prices were also erratic. A rapid recovery followed an initial significant fall in prices in March 2020. And we even had record highs at the end of 2020. The rapid recovery, and certainly the records at the stock exchanges at the end of the year seem odd, especially in the light of all the economic measures needed to curb the pandemic. The incredible support measures taken by governments both in Europe and the United States, as well as the fact that a vaccine was almost ready, offer an explanation for this optimism on the stock exchanges.
It’s just the interest rate that continues to be a problem: it fell sharply last year and stayed very low the entire year. And as you know, pension funds notice that immediately in their coverage ratio. Fortunately, we have not had to make cuts in the accrued pensions. But we were also unable to index the pensions.
There was also the pension agreement in June 2020 too. As we’re now well informed about this, in 2021 we will focus on what implementing the new pension contract will mean for our fund.
I’ve done my best to keep you informed throughout the year by posting regular texts on the website. If there’s a reason to do that this year, I’ll certainly keep doing this. I also expect that we will be able to tell you more about the new pension contract some time in the second half of 2021, possibly in the form of a webinar. And I hope that the coronavirus vaccination programme gain some momentum, so that we can return to a somewhat ‘normal’ situation. Kind regards, Kostijn
Kostijn van Gerven
Director