In early September, the non-state pension fund of the energy industry announced the merger of Wimm Bill Dann and Vernost. The merger talks lasted almost a year. The procedure began in September last year, in April 2012 it was approved by the State Financial Markets Service, and in June it was finally approved by the Federal Antimonopoly Service. According to the assurances of the participants in the transaction, such a lengthy merger procedure is quite a normal practice.
The non-state pension fund for the electric power industry was founded by 82 enterprises, which represent, for the most part, the energy sector. The fund includes 529,000 people, which makes it one of the largest funds in Russia. To date, there are practically no transactions on the merger of funds in the pension market. In 2011, the non-state pension funds Rus and Promagrofond merged, but such a merger was entirely the initiative of Rus, which lost its license from the Federal Financial Markets Service and was forced to transfer the affairs of its 284,000 clients to another fund.
According to the market participants themselves, the suspension of fund mergers caused a dispute between their regulators regarding the preservation of the funded component. So far, this situation has not caused panic in the market, but, obviously, if negotiations were underway to merge funds, then they were frozen or will be frozen for a while. The heads of non-state pension funds are waiting for the decision of the authorities in choosing a strategy for the development of the pension system and its funded components.
According to the chairmen of non-state pension funds, the authorities will benefit from captive funds that develop mainly corporate pension programs of organizations. Experts argue that such a measure could lead to an increase in the number of mergers and consolidations. If the authorities choose a radical option and abolish the funded part, the founders of funds will be able to sell them to larger non-state companies. If you choose a less radical option with a reduction in deductions to the funded part (now the percentage of deductions is 6% of wages), this measure can have a strong negative impact on the economy of market non-state pension funds, which can also contribute to their merger with larger funds.
