Only 3 of the 18 mandatory pension companies reached their initial sales targets, whilst the remainder failed to meet their original forecasts.
ING, Allianz-Tiriac and Generali are the only mandatory private pension (pillar II) companies that met or exceeded their initial sales targets, announced in September at the start of the campaign. ING (the market leader) and Allianz-Tiriac (ranked second), the largest life insurer and general insurer respectively, each attracted more than one million customers, whilst Generali (ranked third) exceeded the 400,000-customer mark. The other 15 management companies' sales results failed to match initial expectations.
However, some of 15 can take satisfaction from the outcome because they succeeded in gaining a market share larger than that on the markets majority shareholders come from. Two examples are Aviva (ranked fourth) and Interamerican (fifth), which both gained better positions and bigger portions of the pension market compared with the insurance market.
Aviva, which holds a 7.8% market share, is one of the two companies that at the start of the campaign set out to gain over 30% of the market, but managed to get less. BCR (ranked eighth) also set a target of over 30%, but gained only 3%, the largest gap between targets and achievements. However, the comparison between targets and results is distorted, because estimates differ as to the actual size of the market.
Before the campaign, companies forecast mandatory pensions would attract between 2.5 and 2.8 million customers, and calculated their market share targets in line with this figure. In fact, the campaign attracted 4 million participants, which surpassed even the most upbeat expectations.
In the case of pension companies controlled by banks, BT Aegon achieved the best position (seventh), with a 3.1% market share. Despite its lower-than-expected sales, (the company targeted 15% of the market and a top five position), BT Aegon managed, however, to jump above BCR (leader of the banking market) and BRD (ranked second on the banking market). In fact, all the banks present on the private pension market posted results that were significantly below their initial objectives.
Omniasig, part of Vienna Insurance, the biggest insurance group domestically, took the tenth position and gained only 1.6% of the pension market. The remaining positions are filled by pension funds that each hold 1% of the market. These companies will have to make a decision on their future.
"We haven't decided whether to sell or keep the fund, yet (...)," specified Enache Jiru, a CEO at MKB Romexterra Pensii.
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