PIPF and SNPF post pleasing investment results for 2021.
The retirement funds have many reasons to be grateful for after a year which we know was very difficult for many of the members of the Funds and stakeholders. We are therefore grateful that we can report that investment results in the retirement funds for the calendar year 2021 were very good. The net returns for 2021 credited to the members’ fund credits were as follows:
Printing Industry Pension Fund for SATU Members (PIPF): 25%
SATU National Provident Fund (SNPF): 24%
Pensioners in the Printing Industry Pension Fund received an increase of 6% from 1 January 2022.
The combined value of the Funds is now more than R6,8bn.
We report these results with storm clouds brewing through the war in Eastern Europe and increasing inflation throughout the world. The latter is partly due to the disruption of supply chains during the various lockdown measures taken due to the worldwide health crisis and the other economic policies in the world. It is important that we protect our members against increasing prices in retirement and our investment strategies should reflect this. The hard work to continue to create value for our members must therefore continue with the new challenges!
These reasons are another reminder that it is important that members save adequately for retirement and as we return to work, we would like to encourage members to return to contribution levels before the pandemic or even improved saving levels.
There have been regular regulation changes and more planned in the near future. An important change that came into effect on 1 March 2021 was compulsory annuitisation at retirement for provident funds. This means, that as for pension funds, members retiring from the provident fund, will have to apply their retirement fund credit towards a pension on retirement. The sister fund of the SNPF has a multi-decade record of paying pensions and providing pensioners with increases in excess of inflation and we hope that retiring provident fund members will use this record in making their retirement decisions.
Dirk Oosthuizen
Principal Officer
March 2022
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