Minutes of Meeting DuPont/Pensioners Group 8th November 2017
Present: Chris Newton, Pierre Chaigneau, Georges Darrer, Denis Hill
Fund performance 2017 to date: Chris reviewed the performance which showed a return of around 8% mainly due to the performance of equities and a coverage of between 102 to 103%. There will be a decision at the end of November as to the reduction of the TIR from 2.25 to 2%. (This decision will now be taken in January when final numbers for 2017 are available) the actives interest rate is currently at 3%. The cost is estimated at 12MMCHF.
Georges’ request for a paragraph to be included in the final 2016 report explaining how Bridge Pensions to AVS age for people taking early retirement works was honoured and DuPont were thanked for that. However, there wasn’t any reference made to the existence of our association in the transmittal of the Pension Annual Report.
Merger Update: The merger was completed as of the 1st September and the company is now called Dow/DuPont. The split into the 3 separate companies will take up to 24 months to complete. Elements of the Dow Corning silicone business will be transferred into the Speciality Chemicals company and the DuPont Engineering Polymers will be in that company also – a change from previous expectations. The relevant parts of the Ag business has been transferred to FMC as of the 1st November. The Polymer and Industrial Packaging businesses will move to Dow. It is still too early to know which company(s) will be responsible for the Pensions management or who will handle the TPG administration. It is planned that there will be information given to employees by mid 2018.
Pensioners Association: Patrick has confirmed that he will present an up-to-date review at the AGM on the 6th December. It was stressed that he needs to be very clear to avoid mistrust. An equivalent letter to that recently sent to US pensioners would be a useful guarantee for pensioners here.
At this time Arnold Dickers with Maitre Schneider joined the meeting to discuss the TPG/RAP issues and so there wasn’t any further discussion on issues with Chris.
The following items were therefore not covered.
DuPont/Pensioners Biannual get-together: Pierre asked if DuPont would plan to have a reunion this year and Chris agreed to raise this point. We still await an answer, or did we get one? If we did I’ll delete this item but it is a question I’ve been asked recently and we might want to reply to in December.
Medical Assurance: As the expected increases in the basic insurance premiums for 2018 were forecast in the press to be around the 4 to 5% level, how is that the Mutuel premiums have gone up by over 9%? An explanation would be appreciated.