pension funds

As Kommersant has learned, one of the oldest Russian non-state pension funds, Dobroye Delo, is preparing for sale. Its owner, one of the structures affiliated with the UWC holding, suggested that the NPF management find a new owner. Thus, for the first time on the Russian market, the pension fund went on open sale.
NPF "Good Deed" was registered in April 1994 as a non-profit organization with an authorized capital of 4 billion rubles. The founders were the commercial bank "Moscow", the commercial and industrial company "Ventana", the financial technology center "Hephaestus", the scientific and production enterprise "Komek", the investment company "Reminvest BV" (Netherlands). In 1996, “Good Deed” received a NPF license.
"Good Deed" is one of the oldest pension funds focused on retail business. He is called legendary because back in the early 90s he carried out a large-scale advertising campaign. At that time, the fund ran programs typical of the pension business of the 90s - “student” deposits, “gray” schemes. Later, with the appearance of SBS-Agro among the founders, NPF Dobroye Delo became part of the bank’s retail business. After the 1998 crisis, the NPF became part of the Financial and Industrial Federation holding, to which the assets of SBS-Agro were transferred. Now it is actually not developing: with the general growth trend of the pension market, Dobroye Delo’s reserves have decreased over the past two years.
According to Kommersant's information, the owners of the fund decided to reduce their share in the founders to the maximum extent possible. Pre-sale preparations have already been carried out: the NPF has been thoroughly cleaned. The fund's corporate clients received information about the upcoming sale. A number of participants chose to withdraw funds from it, which is why pension reserves were halved. “At the moment, we have no outstanding obligations,” Oleg Zakharov, general director of the NPF Good Deed, told Kommersant. “We are looking for new investors for further development.”
The UWC group refused to name the reasons for the sale of the fund. However, according to Kommersant's sources, non-state pension funds "are not considered a profitable area of the holding." Nevertheless, the sale of Dobroye Delo looks strange, because the pension business could soon become very profitable - starting next year, non-state pension funds will be admitted to compulsory pension insurance.
There are already rumors on the market that NPF Dobroye Delo will be acquired by one of the financial groups actively developing the pension business. These are primarily MFO MENATEP, Guta Bank, and the Russian Development Bank. In addition, the fund may be of interest to top ten corporate funds. After all, some of them buy open non-state pension funds to enter the pension insurance market. And “Good Deed” is one of the few open NPFs.
“Now the price of the fund is determined not by assets and management, but by the number of pension accounts,” Vyacheslav Andreev, deputy general director of the Lukoil-Garant NPF, told Kommersant, “since this indicator will influence the NPF’s admission to compulsory pension insurance.” Individual accounts of open funds will not be cheap, since the vast majority of non-state pension funds operate under joint schemes and maintain only a few accounts. And in order to operate under compulsory insurance, NPFs need to have at least 20 thousand registered accounts.
LISA Kommersant-GOLIKOVA

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 10 dated January 23, 2003, page 14

Authors:

Elizaveta Golikova

"Good Deed" goes on sale