Germany’s Nürnberger is to transfer its pension fund business to the firm Bankhaus Metzler.

The transfer will be completed at the beginning of January next year when the €290m portfolio will be transferred to Metzler Pension Management. According to reports in Germany, the deal includes 3,600 individual pensions with 700 companies and still needs to be signed off by regulator BaFin.

The legal advisers on the deal were the law firms CMS and Hogan Lovells, with the former advising for Metzler and the latter for Nürnberger. A statement from Nürnberger said that the service claims for existing members will remain unaffected by the takeover. It is understood that the transaction comes as part of the insurer’s aim to refocus its business strategy.

Nürnberger board member for personal insurance, Katja Briones-Schulz, said: “As part of our realignment, Nürnberger is concentrating on its core competencies. In life insurance, the focus is on the topic of income protection. In the area of private and company pension schemes, we pursue the strategy of the smart follower. The pension fund, which, in contrast to the other company pension implementation methods, is largely not designed in the form of insurance, no longer fits into our product range in the future.”

As a result, she added: “We are pleased to be able to hand over the Nürnberger Pension Fund to a long-standing partner and to know that our customers are in good hands."

On the other side of the coin, Metzler said that it was looking forward to working with existing partners, with its top priority being the continuation of care for pension holders.

Metzler CEO, Christian Remke said: “We are pleased that the takeover of the NÜRNBERGER Pensionsfonds, which has been successfully managed since 2005, has come about. Regional support and personal relationships are particularly important for small and medium-sized companies.”

According to a statement from Metzler, the transaction is a further significant step in the implementation of Bankhaus Metzler's corporate strategy, which was further developed last year. Recently, its asset management section announced a cooperation for infrastructure investments.

Metzler member of the management board, Franz von Metzler, said: "We have a clear growth strategy, which we are implementing step by step. We are not interested in short-term success but in sustainable results. Our pension management is an excellent example of this. Company pension schemes will become significantly more important for companies in the coming years. Metzler is ideally positioned to leverage this potential and offer real added value for customers."

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