XDISAWEB

Minutes of the XDISA AGM meeting, 6 December 2017

From my count there were 46 retirees present plus the 3 DuPonters, Patrick Schriber, Chris Newton and Arnold Dickers.

Agenda (1^st part) items:
1.The May 2016  minutes were accepted without comment.
2. Pierre presented the President’s Report mentioning that Lars and Hans were stepping down.
3. Georges presented the Treasurer’s Report and stated that we needed an auditor for the future. Gerald Chopard offered to carry out that function and it was accepted.
4. The above reports were approved.
5. The remaining members of the old committee – Pierre, Georges, Denis, Ed, Peter Taylor  and Peter Vine were re-elected.
6. Miscellaneous:

a) German K. requested that the next meeting be in Geneva and Gerard Chopard proposed it to be in the afternoon as most members were living in Geneva.;

b) Communications with all members seemed to be a problem and Georges said he would consider it and resolve the difficulties including confirming payment of fees. Those in attendance were asked to let Georges know if they hadn’t been contacted directly. 

 c. Denis also reminded DuPont that they had been requested to include a direct information on the Retirees Association to all retirees and that this had not been done to date.                                           

d) Bernard Sauner raised the question on Health Insurance and the impact on retirees. The response to this was that our deal with Mutuel is relatively good, but due to enormous cost increases in health care the premiums keep going up. Only significant cost saving possible is when dropping the semi-privé option.

Agenda (2^nd part) items:

Presentation on the Merger by Patrick Schriber

He described the groupings of the 3 new companies which will be independent companies eventually (by mid-2019).

The 3 companies will be: Agriculture – Called something like AGCo; Material Science a DowCo; Speciality Products a DupontCo.                                                                                                                   

The Ag part required a move of Crop Protection from Dow/DuPont to the FMC Corporation with FMC’s Nutrition and Health moving the other way for Regulatory Requirement approval of the merger. 

He said he would provide a summary of the presentation for general distribution.

German K.  asked how and where the pension Fund would be handled. Patrick said DuPont would honour its commitments, but the exact details hadn’t yet been finalised; the Spec. Co. looks clearly to be the logical home for the Fund.

Presentation of the status of the Pension Fund by Chris Newton.

He presented the status as of the end of October 2017 and the future plans regarding the Technical Interest Rate.  He promised to provide charts for distribution.

Finally, Arnold Dickers told us the status of the work around the TPG/RAP and said that they added one person to clean up the cases, that resulted from previous different interpretations of the Policy. There has been legal counsel from both sides involvement and the interpretation are now clear, which means that pending cases can be processed.     An example of such a case was mentioned by Jan Kranendonk.

Pierre closed the meeting, thanked the DuPont colleagues and invited all to the Bar for a snack and a drink.

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.

 

 

We are preparing a set of information and data resulting from the General Assembly on December 6.

This will be put on line in the next few days.

In the meantime the committee sends you their wishes

for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

 

 

Could you please add “health insurance” as a point of discussion on the agenda.

Regards

Bernhard Sauner

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!