Thu Feb 19, 2009 11:31am EST
AMSTERDAM, Feb 19 (Reuters) – The Dutch central bank (DNB) is planning to give the country’s pension funds more time to improve their solvency ratios, a Dutch newspaper reported on Thursday.
Pension funds, which are expected to have a solvency ratio of at least 130 percent under current guidelines, will now have five years instead of three to restore their ratios, Dutch daily Financieele Dagblad reported.
The DNB declined to comment on the report.
According to the newspaper, some 600 Dutch pension funds now have an average solvency ratio of 96 percent, meaning that they cannot meet all of their obligations to pension holders.
Any pension funds with a solvency ratio of less than 105 percent as of April 1 are required to submit a plan to restore their ratios within three years, either from higher premiums or investment returns.
ABP, the world’s third-largest state pension fund after Japan’s and Norway’s, reported last month that the value of its assets shrank to 173 billion euros at the end of December from 195 billion euros a year earlier, bringing the solvency ratio to 90 percent.
Royal Dutch Shell’s (RDSa.L) pension fund also slipped into deficit after its value fell 40 percent, pushing its solvency ratio to 85 percent.
(Reporting by Reed Stevenson and Gilbert Kreijger; editing by David Stamp)
© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved
This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
