The agreement, signed in December 2017, will serve to innovate and consolidate SOKA-BAU’s current systems and architecture, to provide the fund with an operationally efficient and integrated investment management setup.

Based on universally applicable collective agreements, SOKA-BAU’s corporate pension schemes are provided to all employees of the approximately 75,000 companies within the German construction industry. The introduction of SimCorp Dimension as the central system in SOKA-BAU’s investment management will support its goals to achieve greater automation, scalability to the fund’s future growth ambitions, and the flexibility to adapt to new, complex market conditions and requirements.

A key requirement in the selection of SimCorp Dimension is SOKA-BAU’s ability to use one multi-asset class solution to manage its entire range of investments across a range of front to back office functions, from portfolio management to accounting. The selection provides SOKA-BAU with a transparent process across the investment lifecycle and replaces a number of outdated systems and applications.

SimCorp Dimension will also provide SOKA-BAU with extensive risk management functionality, which will support the pension fund with efficient risk measurement of its portfolio. By using a single source of real-time data, powered by the system’s Investment Book of Record (IBOR), the solution will deliver better understanding of exposure and enable more accurate forecasting, safe-guarding the pensions of its members.

Maria Güntner, Head of Portfolio Management at SOKA-BAU, comments: "After a comprehensive selection process, SimCorp Dimension proved to be the most complete solution to meet our integration, automation and transparency requirements. Consolidating our system architecture onto one multi-asset class platform will significantly enhance our asset management capabilities, while reducing our operating costs. Ultimately, this allows us to serve our members and their needs more efficiently."

Alexander Hase, Vice President of Sales & Account Management, SimCorp Central Europe said: "We are very pleased to welcome SOKA-BAU to our global community of pension funds and insurance companies. This partnership underlines the significant benefits of consolidated investment management for the pensions and insurance industry. We believe the integrated nature of SimCorp Dimension, in combination with our continuous development of the system, is the optimal approach for these firms, and provides the tools and services they need to meet current and future investment management needs."