News in brief: 23 September

The Netherlands’ Pensioen PostNL has seen its policy funding ratio rise to 129.9 per cent, as at the end of August 2022.

This represents a 1.6 percentage point rise on July, when the policy funding ratio was 128.3 per cent, and a year-on-year increase of 7.6 percentage points. The current funding ration was also found to have increased, from 133.1 per cent at the end of July to 140.9 per cent at the end of August. PostNL noted that although the value of investments fell in August, interest rates rose sharply, generating a positive effect on the funding ratio.

AXA IM Alts has announced the launch of a new Natural Capital strategy, designed to support nature-based solutions.

The launch of this new strategy, initially reserved for AXA Group investors that have provided an initial €500m commitment, represents the next step in the evolution of AXA IM Alts’ current natural capital offering and underpins AXA IM Alts’ broader strategic plans to further extend its efforts to address climate change and biodiversity loss. This commitment forms part of AXA Group’s €1.5bn commitment to protect and sustainably manage forest ecosystems, and this latest investment will further contribute to its target to remove or avoid up to 25 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

The current funding ratio of the Netherlands’ Pensioenfonds Hoogovens rose in August, from 123.9 per cent to 131.2 per cent.

At the beginning of 2022, the current funding ratio was 125.6 per cent. This year, the actuarial interest rate has a positive effect of 32.7 percentage points on the development of the current funding ratio. However, the investment return reduced the current funding ratio by 14.5 percentage points and the pension increases granted this year had a negative effect on the current funding ratio of 11.4 percentage points. Meanwhile, the policy funding ratio rose from 125.1 per cent to 126 per cent in August.

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