About the Fund
The Roche Pension Fund is established as a trust so that it’s completely independent from the Sponsoring Employer, Roche Products Limited (the Company).
A separate Trustee company, called Roche Products Pension Trust Limited, manages the Fund in accordance with the Fund’s Trust Deed and Rules. The Trustee company has a board of Directors who are either selected by the Company or selected by the Fund membership (known as Member Nominated Directors, or MNDs). The Directors are often referred to as the Trustee Directors, or simply as trustees.
The Trustee board consists of four Company Nominated Directors (CNDs) and four Member Nominated Directors (MNDs).
The security of your benefits is of paramount importance to the Trustee. For this reason, every three years we complete an in-depth review of the financial health of the Fund, known as an actuarial valuation. This compares the value of the investments (the Fund’s assets) with the amount of money needed in the Fund to pay for the pension benefits already built up when they become due to members (the Fund’s liabilities). A specialist adviser called an actuary completes a series of calculations using various assumptions which are agreed by the Trustee and the Company. This tells us the funding level on a particular date for the pension benefits already built up. The next valuation is due on 31 March 2024.
More details can be found in the latest Summary Funding Statement. You can find these along with the full valuation reports under ‘Trustee documents’ in the Library.
You may also have heard about the Pension Protection Fund. This is a Government ‘lifeboat’ scheme that can provide compensation to members in a worst-case scenario where their employer goes bust and is unable to support the scheme. The level of compensation provided by the PPF is set out in legislation and depends on your age and membership type.
We recognise that a sustainable approach is key to structuring the DB Section’s investments. The Fund’s investment manager, Mercer, has committed to achieving net zero carbon output across the Fund’s DB investments by 2050, with a 45% reduction by 2030. To support this objective, we have made investments in sustainability-orientated strategies in recent years, and closely monitor the stewardship of our underlying investments with regards to ESG factors.