Victor Ezeja
National Pension Commissionn(PenCom) has announced that 20 Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) have complied with its N5 billion minimum regulatory capital requirement for operations.
The commission had approved a 12-month period recapitalization exercise for the PFAs to increase their shareholder funds from N1 billion to N5 billion and set April 27, 2022 as deadline. The recapitalization exercise became expedient following PFAs’ sustained assets growth signifying increased responsibilities that require more operational capacity.
PenCom, in a statement obtained by Prime Business Africa, said assets had grown by 244 per cent from N3 trillion in 2012 (when the previous recapitalisation was done), to N12.29 trillion (as of December 31, 2020). The record did not capture the 2021 asset growth in PFAs.
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“The urgent need to ramp up the capacity of PFAs to manage increasing number of registered contributors and value of pension fund assets under management led to the recapitalisation exercise,” PenCom indicated in its statement issued on Friday, April 29, 2022.
The commission further stated that “10 PFAs had met the new regulatory capital requirement of N5 billion as at 31 December 2021, while the others intensified efforts to meet the deadline of 27 April 2022.
“This resulted in some mergers and acquisitions, which led to the reduction of the number of PFAs from 22 to 20.”
“The Commission approved the acquisition of AIICO Pension Managers Limited by FCMB Pensions Limited; and the merger between Tangerine Pensions Limited and APT Pension Funds Managers Limited and subsequent change of name of the merged entity to Tangerine APT Pensions Limited.
“In addition, the Commission also approved Norrenberger’s acquisition of IEI-Anchor Pension Managers Limited, after its acquisition of the majority shareholder, IEI Plc.
“With the conclusion of the recapitalisation exercise,” the commission added, stakeholders, particularly Retirement Savings Accounts (RSA) holders should expect increased effectiveness and efficiency as well as improved service deliver from PFAs.
