Those of you who have registered as members and paid your dues, have received this invitation by email.

If you are not yet a member and wish to attend, you can do so by registering and paying your annual membership fee of CHF 30.-  to our account at the BCV

IBAN CH03 0076 7000 E508 3457 9
DUPONT PENSIONER NETWORK

XDISA : Association des Retraités de DuPont de Nemours en Suisse

Dear members and colleagues,

The associations committee met on July 6 with the purpose of reviewing input from the meeting with DISA and handling administrative matters for the association. 

The information obtained so far is reassuring from the point of view of our fund’s performance. You have received in July the relevant annual report.

In terms of the merger and future organizational set up there is little but hearsay and assumptions about the attributions of actual businesses after the break down of Dow/DuPont  into three corporations, that appear to be still under discussion. We hope more substantial information to be available in November-December still this year. 

Our Association legal structure does require a formal General Assembly this year. In the expectation of a better chance for more significant news, we are proposing to set that date on December 6. Specific details will be provided later in the year, but please note the date. 

It is time also to deal with membership fees which are set at 30 CHF/year. To make matters simple, all fees paid in 2016 are valid for 2017. If you have also paid in 2017, this will count for 2018. The few that have paid both years will be credited 2018 fees. If you have registered and not paid any fee please pay your 2017 fee.

If you receive this message and have not yet registered please do so and pay your 2017 contribution.

To register, please go to your web site at https://xdisaweb.ch/en_GB/member-registration/

With best wishes for a pleasant remainder of summer from your committee

Minutes of Meeting DuPont/Pensioners Group 10th May 2017

 Present: Chris Newton,  Pierre Chaigneau, Georges Darrer, Denis Hill

Fund performance 2016: Chris reviewed the performance which showed a return of 5.2% and a coverage of 101.9% including the impact of reducing the TIR (Technical Interest Rate) to 2.25% from 2.5%. The coverage including the new contribution reserve was 103.3%.

There are now 902 retirees and 351 employees with the reduction of employees from 397 due to further restructuring of businesses.

Georges asked for a paragraph to be included in the final report explaining how Bridge Pensions to AVS age for people taking  early retirement works and that a reference be made to the existence of our association in the transmittal of the Pension Annual Report.

Merger Update: The EU has approved the merger with conditions requiring a sell-off about 50% of the AG Crop Protection business including the Research facilities to the FMC Corporation. In a  counter party FMC will sell its Health and Nutritional assets to the new merged company and keep its seeds as well as the other 50% of its crop protection business.

Final approvals are expected in the August/September period this year with then about 18 months to set up the 3 companies – redefined AG, Specialities, Dow as now including performance plastics.

There isn’t any further information of the impact on sites as yet.

TPG/RAP: It was requested, in the absence of Patrick and Arnold, that we need to discuss and clarify our different positions with regard to the interpretation of the RAP process and resolve the legal points raised in our report as they were not covered in DuPont’s last response. Chris was requested to set up this meeting between DuPont and the TPG impacted retirees in the near future. The retirees group will be expanded to include a third member at this meeting.

 As part of the merger split who will have responsibilities for the TPG/RAP ongoing operation?

DuPont/Pensioners Biannual get-together: Pierre asked if DuPont would plan to have a reunion this year and Chris agreed to raise this point.

 

Reply to minutes by DuPont 15th June 2017

Thank you for the minutes. Just a few points from my side.

1. For the annual activity report, we will explore if we can add a section on how the complementary pension arrangements work. Regarding the inclusion of the contact details for the Retiree Association, on reflection I am not sure this will be possible, however please can you send me the details that you would want to be included so that it can be reviewed.
2. Regarding the RAP/TPG discussion, the company would expect to be in a position to have a follow up discussion in Qtr3/4. I suggest we have this as an agenda item of our next meeting.
3. Regarding a retiree event, there are a lot of corporate activities scheduled for Qtr4, so having a retiree event in November or December might not be the best timing. We will review this over the coming weeks and let you know a final decision as soon as possible.

Denis, Georges & Pierre,

Have an enjoyable summer and lets plan to meet again in Sept/Oct timeframe.

Best Regards

Chris Newton

 

 

Dear fellow retirees from DISA, members of the defined benefit Pension Plan

As previously communicated your ad-hoc team founded an association for you in May 2016. We have 128 registered members to date. You are encouraged to join or to invite all DISA retirees you know to join.

We need to plan a general meeting.

In the absence of important and concrete news about the Dow-DD merger and any consequences thereof, we believe that it would be best to plan to meet in late

September, to ensure that most of us are available.

However, should anything important transpire from our contacts with DISA or our Fund’s Board, we shall call the meeting earlier. We will revert with any more substantial news.

If you wish to communicate with us, please send your e-mails to:  members@xdisaweb.ch

Best regards and stay in good health,

Your committee

 

 

Dear colleagues and members

As you know, we have set up an association to represent our interests. On October 19 2016, we had a committee meeting to review the outcome of le latest meeting representatives of the association had with the DISA pension plan administrators. The essence of this meeting and some other matters discussed can be found on the new post on our site https://xdisaweb.ch/en_GB/notes-on-xdisa-pensioners-association-meeting-19th-october-2016/

Additionally, we also prepared a statement about the merger and pension matters which we felt required some clarification. It is on our site at the following address https://xdisaweb.ch/en_GB/du-pontdow-merger-pensions/

Finally, as mentioned in our notes, we have received 92 formal membership registration to the association, which is a small proportion of the 700-odd DISA pensioners. If you have not already done so you can register on https://xdisaweb.ch/en_GB/member-registration/

We are planning to have a general assembly in the spring of 2017. We will keep you posted on dates and details.

In the meantime, we wish you all the best and Season Greetings!

 

 

 Present:  Pierre Chaigneau, Georges Darrer, Peter Vine, Lars Gellerstad, Ed Peter, Denis Hill

Report on meeting with DuPont 9th September:

The Pension Fund: The pension fund at the end of 2015 had a coverage of 100.4%. The interest rate was reduced to 2.5% from January 2016 and this required an increase in the plan reserves which was accomplished by  transferring the employers reserves into the plan reserves. The future goal is to keep the coverage at the 100% level and this will mean extra payments into the fund if the fund performance doesn’t cover the needs. The old goal of reaching 124% is thus removed.

DuPont /Dow Merger: There wasn’t any news on the merger as they are also in the dark. The request to put out a general letter assuring employees and pensioners that their future pensions were safe was raised and a Town Meeting with employees would be held on the 14th November was planned to update them on the merger. A separate letter would be sent to pensioners at the same time.

TPG/RAP:  It was made clear that a formal reply is needed for the participants on the policy on the RAP interpretation and that DuPont doesn’t see the need for an independent review to resolve differences.

Other Items:

The legal review of the TPG/RAP: Denis reviewed the results of our independent legal review which results in our interpretation of the policy being correct.                                                                                  Georges stated that the guidelines were written without the precision of the Pension rules and this left it open to interpretation. He said the financing of the TPG scheme was separate from the Pension Fund and DISA funded. Ed added that this was a DISA/European question and not Wilmington related so they couldn’t interfere.

Pierre and Denis will set up a meeting with Arnold to discuss.

The merger and pension Guarantees:   Pierre emphasized the importance of having some kind of communication strategy to cope with the messages and questions related to the USA pension situation in particular and also to other European countries. It was stated that the US letter on the subject was useful but as each DuPont country subsidiary had their own practices and rules each country would not be impacted in the same way. While it is good to hear what other countries, especially the US, are doing we have to realise that it is the DISA situation which is our reference point. Peter Vine will draft a statement on this for our members.

XDISA Association: Only 92 members have signed up to date, about 25%, and a reminder should be sent out to the whole association. It was proposed that we schedule our General Assembly in late spring 2017 and that we send out a pre-notice soon.

 Welcome to the XDISA Association!

The Ad-hoc group held a meeting on May 11 2016 and reviewed current issues and how to best handle them. As indicated previously, it was decided to create an association.

So now it is done! The XDISA Association is born.

The  Statutes of the association have been placed on the website as well as the minutes of the May 11 meeting.

The key element of the statutes is Article 3 which reads:

The Association aims to safeguard the interests of present and future beneficiaries of the pension fund DuPont de Nemours International S.a.r.l and beneficiaries of specific advantages linked to the pensions provided by the company DuPont de Nemours International S.a.r.l to individuals or groups of individuals in addition to benefits directly related to the pension plan managed by the pension fund founded by DuPont de Nemours International S.a.r.l

The rest of the statutes deal with the methods and the legal aspects of running an association.

Now we need to officially enroll members. This can be done by filling in the Enrollment form below. The membership fee has been set at CHF 30 a year.

This newsletter is being sent to 296 addressees for whom we have an e-mail address. We encourage you to share this news with your retiree friends.

Another important piece of news is that DuPont has made a formal statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to confirm their engagement to stick by their commitments in terms of pensions.

This document is also placed on the website for your information.

Communications with DISA management and the Pension Fund team continues.

The Association is directed by a committee with the following membership:

President: Pierre Chaigneau
Secretary: Georges Darrer
Treasurer: Hans Ackermann
Members: Lars Gellerstad, Denis Hill, Ed Peter, Peter Taylor, Peter Vine.

Greetings from your committee!

REGISTRATION FORM

Membership fee is CHF 30.-/year payable to our account at the BCV

IBAN CH03 0076 7000 E508 3457 9
DUPONT PENSIONER NETWORK

[contact-form-7 id=”941″ title=”Member Registsration”]

Notes on Meeting DuPont 2nd March 2016

Present: Chris Newton, Arnold Dikkers, Pierre Chaigneau, Georges Darrer, Denis Hill

This meeting was requested by the Pensioners Ad-Hoc Group to discuss concerns raised by pensioners about the Dow/DuPont merger and the impact on their pensions and health insurance in the future once the merger and the split into 3 companies was completed.

The ad-hoc group had sent a copy of the letter issued to pensioners in the US to Chris and requested that a similar letter be sent by DISA to all pensioners which could help alleviate fears by specifying that DuPont would honour all its legal obligations regarding the safeguarding of their interests. Chris said this would be given careful consideration. The ad-hoc group asked that this should also cover the European Transfer Pension Guidelines including the RAP process.

The timelines for the series of actions on the merger will start with the 2nd quarter 2016 DuPont AGM when shareholders will be asked to approve the merger. The merger is then expected to take place in the second half of 2016 with a period up to 2 years for the split in the 3 separate companies.

The pension plan will have to sit with one of these companies or with some, as yet unknown, alternative solution.

The 2015 results of the pension fund are not yet finalised but expectations are for a small loss and a coverage above 100%. . Currently there are about 900 pensioners and about 400 employees in the fund. George queried the current Technical Interest Rate of 3% versus the Swiss LPP rate of 1.75%. Chris said for the 2015 accounts the plan was to use 2.5% for measuring pensioner liabilities.

The TPG/RAP review process was moving more slowly than planned as the merger had had some implications on peoples availability to address it.

However, an extra person at 50% had been drafted in to help. Initially they plan to address pensioners in groups per country to resolve national issues at one go versus mixing national implications hoping to speed up the overall review of all approx. 200 pensioners involved. DISA has by far the greater number of these. The minutes of the telephone conference between Denis and the DuPont representatives last November had still not been replied to but a draft was in place and would be issued shortly to address all the issues raised. Two main

points were emphasised in the review which covered the Guaranteed Retirement Income which should include the actual monies received by the pensioner and not a calculated amount to cover Social Security variations. Also the need to have a DISA meeting of impacted pensioners to fully explain the process and the results. Arnold handed out an initial proposal on the Basic TPG concepts which is a good starting point in the process to an updated structural change.

Health Insurance concerns were raised with the goal to keep the pensioners in the GEM scheme. It was not known if Dow in Switzerland was a member of the GEM group. The ad-hoc group suggested a potential solution in the event of any change might be to consider the large group of pensioners in DISA as a separate entity in its own right in the GEM.

Newsletter 57 – Jan-Feb 2016

Greetings from your ad-hoc group.

A preliminary meeting was held 21.01.16 in view the unavailability of the full ad-hoc group. Present were Pierre Chaigneau, Georges Darrer, Denis Hill, Ed Peter and Peter Taylor.

Our purpose was to review the developments of the sweeping management changes at E.I.DuPont de Nemours and the announcement of a merger with The Dow Chemical Company followed by dismemberment of the new Company into three separate entities. It is not clear at this point which DuPont businesses would be in what entity.

The bottom line appears to be that the 200 year-old DuPont we worked for and trusted, that provided for many inventions, industrial or consumer products and valued brands is in an accelerating dissolution phase. Current employees are already losing their jobs across the globe.

The good news, if you will, is that in this terrible storm, retirees under the umbrella of the “Fondation de prévoyance en faveur du personnel de Du Pont de Nemours International S.A.” are relatively assured of the acquired pension rights by Swiss and Genève laws, as stated in its Statutes and the decree of September 1st 1986 by the State and based on Swiss Federal law. Accordingly, the acquired rights of the beneficiaries are protected and the capital of the foundation and all ulterior contributions are irrevocably the foundation’s and cannot be returned to the founding company or used for anything else than the benefit of the retirees.

Any changes of the statutes must be approved by the “Autorité de Surveillance des Fondations” of Geneva. And this is the weak spot that we must monitor, back up and cultivate. In order to do this we should form an association to give more weight, focus and credibility to any intervention in defence of our rights. Possibly for also interfacing Cantonal and Federal authorities as well as other influential lobbies.

Your comments are welcome on (y)our web site www.xdisaweb.ch., particularly if you agree to participate in such an association.

A meeting with DISA management is scheduled for end February. Let us have any issues, comments or questions we should bring up with them.

Wishing you a better 2016 than was 2015. Stay alive and safe!

Your ad-hoc group.

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The state of our Pension fund – October 2015

The DISA Pension Fund board sent to all pensioners and survivors a full report that details the financial situation overview; 2014 accounts summarized; history of DuPont’s exceptional contributions since 2005; summary of the evolution and events in 2014 and early 2015; condensed information about the partial liquidation, subsequent to the move of 80 people to CHEMOURS on 31.07.15 (ex-DD Performance Chemicals) and relevant consequences to our fund.

The report addresses the most important concerns discussed by delegates from your ad-hoc team with DISA and Fund management. We are of the opinion that this annual report from the DISA Pension fund shows a reassuring outlook regarding performance of the fund and its overall management. Notable facts are:

• The investment performance. The results for 2014 were very good. This is due in part to the fact that the DISA Pension fund employs professional help to guide these investments, which are made in accordance with Swiss law aimed at preserving and growing the fund without taking high risks. Because of the proportion of investment in financial instruments (shares and bonds), a special provision is set up to buffer any sudden changes in value.

• Discount rate ( Technical Interest Rate). The discount rate is the interest rate used to calculate the value of the required reserves to pay our pensions. A high rate, as was used in the past, reduces the amount needed but requires a steady and high investment performance, with the risk of reduced coverage. The company has set about reducing the discount rate over the last few years and a new step was taken at the end of 2014, bringing the rate to 3%. When this is done, it means that the fund has to increase its reserves, in this case to the tune of 48.8 million. This was funded by the revenue from investments. The plan is to continue reducing the discount rate in the future, whenever funds as available to do so, with a target of 2.5% or 2%.

• Pension fund coverage. The coverage rate, after lowering the discount rate, at the end of 2014 was 109.9%. This has been achieved in part due to good investment results but also by a DuPont decision to achieve this goal with substantial cash input over the last 9 years. A total of 203 million CHF have been contributed unilaterally by DuPont over that period, to fund the reduction of the discount rate from 5% in 2005 to the present 3% and to maintain the coverage percentage at or above 100%. The cash injection was a 10-year project. An assessment of whether to launch another similar project is ongoing.

• Status of the fund. Since 2013 the DISA Pension has been split into two entities. One to serve pensions to employees that worked with DISA up to and including July 2012, which is that part that covers our pensions and a new fund that covers new employees from that same date. Our fund is therefore a “closed fund” which is fed by active employees hired before July 2012 and the fund’s capital.

• The Chemours split. A group of DuPont businesses, aggregated under the name of Chemours, were spun off in 2015 worldwide. In DISA this represented 80 employees that had to change employer and thus leave our fund, taking with them their accumulated personal reserves. This is similar to what happened in 2012 when the paint business was sold. The partial liquidation of the fund has no effect on the rights and reserves of the remaining beneficiaries.

• Participants and Pensioners. As at end December 2014 there were 579 participants and 865 beneficiaries. With the departure of the Chemours employees in July 2015, the participants therefore fell to below 500.

• TPG/RAP program. This program covering the special arrangements of those of us who had service in multiple subsidiaries is covered by specific annual contributions by DISA to the fund.

Sorry for the delay