History
Rentenfabrik was founded to offer fair pension provision. It aims to place the focus on pensioners and avoid any cross-subsidy between active insured persons and pension recipients. Rentenfabrik developed from two ideas of its founders – the idea of a pension foundation acting as an innovation driver offering products such as sustainable pensions - and as an institution that enables all insured members to share equally in the investment income (no undesired solidarities). Its founders, Olaf Meyer, Livio Cathomen, Ursula May and Matthias Pfiffner developed the Rentenfabrik concept following the first meeting in 2016 as a foundation specialising in the acquisition of pension portfolios. Altogether another three years passed before Rentenfabrik was founded in 2019. The following issues first needed to be clarified:
- Is the employer no longer obliged to report the pension obligations in its corporate balance sheet in accordance with IFRS and US GAAP following transfer of the pensioners to Rentenfabrik? This is the case if the employer has no additional payment obligation in the event of a shortfall. Intensive discussions on this issue were held with Attorney at Law Erich Peter, former Director of the Supervisory Authority for Occupational Pension Plans and Foundations of the Canton of Zurich, who confirmed in a legal opinion that the Rentenfabrik concept meets this condition.
- Which actuarial requirements need to be met for Rentenfabrik also to obtain the approval of the Security Fund BVG/LPP, the supervisory authority and the occupational pensions expert? Various discussions concerning this were held with the parties responsible. The expert was also involved in configuring the underwriting. Rentenfabrik accordingly already now guarantees fulfilment of the statutory changes currently under discussion concerning pension transfers between occupational benefits institutions.
- How can we secure the necessary funding? Funding by cooperation partners failed due to profit reasons. The motivation of the founders is not of a financial nature and they set great store on the preservation of independence. The founders ultimately succeeded in raising the necessary capital through time and their own resources.
- How should the investment strategy be designed in order to take account of the status of a pure pension fund? On the one hand the security aspect needs to be fulfilled, while on the other hand pension payments are predictable in the long term. In addition, Rentenfabrik wishes to facilitate an inflationary adjustment. Rentenfabrik therefore does not implement cashflow matching but invests the assets in a variety of investment pots according to the security aspect and time horizon. Further details can be found at “Assets”.
- What needs do the pensioners have? As well as a secure pension, we found out in discussions that a share in the investment income and co-determination were important issues. We have ensured this by managing each transferred pension portfolio in a separate pension fund. The pension committee decides on any distribution of free resources of the pension fund to the pension recipients. This may not jeopardise fulfilment of the pension obligations.
Today we are proud to be the only pension foundation in Switzerland to place the focus on pension recipients. Rentenfabrik is to be further developed as an innovation driver, for example by creating places of encounter with its own retirement or multi-generation settlements and offering care instead of pensions.
One feature of Rentenfabrik is the appointment of a pension committee for each pension fund to provide the pensioners with a direct say in the appropriation of the pension fund’s free resources and the composition of the Board of Trustees. The duties of the pension committee comprise deciding on the distribution of free resources at pension fund level, issuing nominations for election to the Board of Trustees and electing the Board of Trustees itself. The pensioners are thus directly involved in the management of Rentenfabrik.