What will change for Customers when FCMB Pensions Limited acquires AIICO Pension Managers Limited

FCMB Pensions Limited (FCMB PFA) is set to acquire 96% stake in AIICO Pension Managers Limited (AIICO PFA) and AIICO PFA will become an indirect subsidiary of FCMB Group Plc with some changes coming to customers of FCMB PFA and alot of changes coming to customers of AIICO PFA.

We will highlight 5 areas where customers of FCMB PFA and or customers of AIICO PFA are likely to see changes. The 5 areas we will be highlighting are Offices, Communication, Social Media, PFA Bank and PFA Performance.

Offices
The Head office and branches of AIICO PFA will be completely re branded with the name, logo and even probably, color of AIICO removed and replaced with FCMB. The Head office and branches of AIICO PFA are expected to all become branches of FCMB Pensions Limited. Customers of both FCMB PFA and AIICO PFA will have access to more branches after the acquisition.

Communications
Once FCMB re-brands AIICO PFA to FCMB Pensions Limited, all communications channels are expected to reflect the change. The email addresses and Phone numbers that AIICO PFA customers are used to will most likely change. We expect FCMB to advice all AIICO PFA customers accordingly.

Social Media handles
Once FCMB re-brands AIICO PFA to FCMB Pensions Limited, they will be automatically required to replicate same in their social media handles. We are curious to see what happens here because AIICO PFA has a much more stronger online brand compared to FCMB PFA.
Below is a comparison of their social media handles;
Facebook: AIICO PFA has over 20,000 followers, FCMB PFA has over 15,000 Followers
Twitter: @AIICOPFA has over 23,000 followers, @fcmbpensions has 3,227 Followers
Instagram: @aiicopfa has over 10,000 followers, @fcmbpensions has 1,116 Followers

For Facebook, we expect FCMB Group to merge FCMB PFA and AIICO PFA Facebook pages. Fortunately, Facebook allows merging of pages, once all the proper setting are done. We do not expect FCMB Group to abandon the over 20,000 followers of AIICO PFA on Facebook neither do we expect them to abandon the over 15,000 Followers of FCMB PFA. Once the merging is done all the followers of AIICO PFA will automatically be following FCMB PFA and the customers will not even notice any change.

For Twitter and Instagram, it will be complicated. Unfortunately, both Twitter and Instagram do not allow merging of accounts, FCMB Group will have to decide on which of the accounts to keep. Its not advisable that FCMB Group should abandon the AIICO PFA Twitter and Instagram accounts with over 23,000 and 10,000 followers respectively for the merely over 3000 and over 1000 followers for FCMB PFA on Twitter and Instagram respectively. The best thing for FCMB Group to do is to note all the followers of the current FCMB PFA accounts on Twitter and Instagram, delete the current FCMB PFA Twitter and Instagram accounts and re brand the AIICO PFA Twitter and Instagram accounts to FCMB PFA, then advice the followers of the old FCMB PFA Twitter and Instagram accounts to follow the new accounts.

Pension Fund Custodian (PFA Banks)
Pension Fund Custodian (PFC) are the Pension Fund Administrators (PFA) banks. They are the ones that the employers send employees pension contributions to for onward credit to the PFA’s account, once the pension contributions are in the PFA’s accounts with the PFC, the PFA will then credit the Retirement Savings Account (RSA) of the employees. Based on the contribution schedule available publicly, the PFC for FCMB PFA is UBA Pensions Custodian Limited while that of AIICO PFA is First Pension Custodians. Once all the acquisition procedures are completed we expect FCMB PFA to advice, all the employers of the RSA holders in AIICO PFA, of the bank details of FCMB PFA’s PFC.

PFA Performance
PensionNigeria monitors the performance of all Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) in Nigeria. We have compared the performance of AIICO PFA and FCMB PFA for Full Year 2019 and for Jan to May 2020 and AIICO PFA does not only have far better performance than FCMB PFA but AIICO PFA performance is also higher than industry average in most cases. (See table below). We hope that FCMB Group management puts this into consideration and retain the investment guys in AIICO PFA because those guys are doing a notable job. See below the performance of AIICO PFA and FCMB PFA for Full Year 2019 and Jan to May 2020.

Performance of AIICO PFA and FCMB PFA for Full Year 2019

Performance of AIICO PFA and FCMB PFA for January to May 2020.