your future www.myupfpension.co.uk Winter 2000-2001 Have we got Contents of ‘Your Fund’ 2 Simply aiming to news for you? make the most of your Fund Welcome to the Winter edition of Your Fund. 4 Pension splitting on It’s still the magazine designed to help you divorce understand more about the UPF, pensions in general 6 Our new pad... and issues regarding your financial future. UKPD goes on-line But have you noticed? care about the detail. But you don’t 7 Stakeholder It looks different. want information overload so we’ve tried pensions We’re always taking on board your to keep things simple. comments about the service we provide and In this issue we cover news of Eagle 8 Eagle Star comes on we’ve introduced some major new initiatives Star as a second AVC provider; the new board as a new AVC in recent months to help us to help you. UPF rules affecting divorce and provider for UPF This is just one of them. A lighter, brighter pensions; all the info you’ll ever need on 8 Countdown to news magazine to bring you up to date with our new website; stakeholder pensions excellence... in the major developments regarding the explained and much more besides. customer service Fund. Your pension is the key to the best Pensions news is unfolding every week years of your life and we know that you do and it is shaping your future. This edition of ‘Your Fund’ has been printed on environmentally friendly paper and distributed to you in recycled envelopes. can you afford not to keep up? If you have any questions or views relating to this issue of Your Fund please contact u Hannah Clarke on her email: [email protected] 1 the new trustee board struc make the most Your pension is the key to your future and we know that – as Fund members – you want to know who is making investment decisions on your behalf. In the last issue of Your Fund Chris Lewin, Head of UK Pensions, reported on the changes to the structure of the trustee board. The board was too big, in view of the reduction in employee numbers over the years, and the existing trustee board were keen to address that fact. Here we remind you of the process and update you with the names of the new trustee board… Trustees? So who are they then? We have reduced the number of The Unilever Pension Fund is looked directors from 24 to 14. This will bring after by a trustee company – Unilever the UPF more into line with other Pension Fund Trustees Limited. The major pension funds. The proposal to directors of the trustee company are reduce the size of the board had to be legally responsible for the assets of the approved by the membership of the pension fund and ensuring that the fund. And that’s where you came in. interests of all the beneficiaries are A total of 39 objections were being safeguarded. received by the deadline of 22 July Member nominated directors Substitutes The new North & West North & West Richard Clark Colin Fairclough board Unilever Research Unilever Research Port Sunlight Port Sunlight Steve Cutting Bernie Mawdsley comprises: Van den Bergh Foods Unilever Research Norwich Port Sunlight Tommy Doyle Phil Robinson Lever Bros Port Sunlight Retired Ex-BEW Gloucester Company appointed directors South & East Dick Aynsley-Smith South & East Richard Greenhalgh (Chair) Van den Bergh Foods Brian McNaughton Tonia Dougal-Biggs Crawley Van den Bergh Foods Christine Drury Ashford Alan Cornish Richie Furlong Van den Bergh Foods Ken Smith Neil Hufton Purfleet BEW Lowestoft Jim McGovern Mike Samuel David Jones Terry Thomas Unilever Research BEW Lowestoft Colworth Pensioner Nominated Director Pensioner Nominated Director Robert Fairclough Dennis Cockerill John Scholey 2 STOP PRESS . STOP PRESS The pension pages of the ture . simply aiming to Intranet site (UK Link) have just been upgraded to reflect the recent changes to the Fund and of your Fund to the way UKPD works. The Intranet site gives different information from the Internet which fell considerably short of the existing 12 member-nominated site – being focused on the 6,792 objections needed to defeat the directors put themselves up for people within UKPD and the proposal. election by the delegates to determine general services on offer. One of the new directors was which of them should be the six board required to be a pensioner member members and which the six substitutes. And you can find it @ and the election of such a member has Finally Unilever reduced the number http://uklink.unilever.com now taken place. Additionally, the of company-appointed directors to seven. under UKNM: departments So who makes the investment decisions? As the trustee board continues to shape up for the future, we ask the Fund’s Chief Investment Officer Wendy Mayall some important questions about the decision making process. YF We all know that the trustees YF What is the committee’s role? have a duty to obtain the best USF Report & Accounts possible returns when investing WM The committee suggests the the Fund’s assets. Can you tell investment strategy that the trustees Full details of the USF’s financial us how the trustees fulfil this should adopt. Once this has been activity during the 12 months to duty? agreed by the trustees, our role is to 31 March 2000 are available in the ensure that it is carried out. This USF Report & Accounts for the WM The trustees do have this obligation includes supervising the various period. To request a copy please although the phrase ‘best possible investment managers appointed to the complete the form below and send returns’ also means that they have to Fund. Although the committee does it to: consider other factors. For example, not get involved in the selection of they should not take excessive risks individual stocks and shares, it does The Fund Secretary, UK Pensions to achieve outstanding returns. keep a close eye on the investment Department, Unilever House, As you know the Fund has between managers. Blackfriars, London £4.5 and £5 billion in assets and EC4P 4BQ the trustees have recognised YF How often does the committee that the investment of the Fund’s meet? (PLEASE USE BLOCK CAPITALS) monies calls for specialist expertise. For this reason they have delegated WM We meet four times a year and also Name: some of the supervision of the report to the full trustee board at investment process to the each of their quarterly meetings. Investment Committee. YF What is your role in the process? YF Who sits on the Investment Membership no: Committee? WM As Chief Investment Officer, I am involved in the daily business of WM Rudy Markham (Unilever’s Financial supervision of the Fund investments Director) chairs the committee which includes liaising with the Address: which includes two of the trustees, investment managers, watching out Christine Drury and David Jones; for trends to which we may need to Jeffrey Allgrove (Unilever’s respond, being alert to potential trouble Controller); Philip Lambert, Head spots and ensuring that the Fund’s of Unilever’s Corporate Pensions assets continue to be invested efficiently. Division; and Chris Lewin as well as A version of this interview has previously myself. There is also an external appeared in Pensioners News, our sister advisory member, Dr Neil Cross. magazine for pensioners. Postcode: 3 life is a journey Your Fund takes a look at what happens to pensions when partners divorce No one ever gets But life changes people and sometimes people need married with the to change their lives if they want to live it to the idea that a divorce full. Approximately one in three marriages ends in will follow divorce and that’s very sad but it’s a fact of life. somewhere down When things do go wrong, the last thing couples the line. It’s just really want to do is to argue over the detail. But we not what we do. all know that’s exactly what can happen. As the national press has recently Pension sharing or splitting is the reported, new laws have been new way forward. The Act introduced to open up new introducing the new way that possibilities in relation to the pension arrangements may be pensions of couples who are getting taken into account in cases of divorced. divorce is the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999. Everyone is keen to treat the individuals concerned fairly and this The changes – effective in divorce has given rise to some interesting cases that commence on or after 1 new issues. The pension of one December 2000 – will be variously partner is often among a couple’s adopted by pension schemes largest assets when they divorce but throughout the UK, each one courts have not traditionally been deciding their rules on pension required to take pensions into sharing within the framework account when handling a settlement. which the Act lays down. The main change is that there will now But now that’s all changed. Since be the option to split a member’s 1 July 1996 courts have been given pension between the member and the authority to take pensions into the ex-spouse. This process is account when handling divorce simply described as pension settlements and the system set up was sharing. Under this option, the to earmark a proportion of one ex-spouse would benefit from a partner’s pension to the other transfer payment (or “pension partner. Earmarking occurs when a credit” as it is called) which has to percentage of the member’s pension be paid to an approved pension is credited to his or her partner on arrangement, or retained in the divorce.