Recession has slowdown our businesses, activities – ARM boss

Managing Director, ARM Pension Managers (PFA) Ltd, Mr. Wale Odutola, has said that the economic recession in the country was slowing down the company’s business activities.

Speaking during the ARM Pension Annual Client Forum in Victoria lsland, Lagos, Odutola affirmed that since the economic downturn in the country begun, clients had reduced the pace of their contributions to the scheme while other had completely terminated the deal.

He explained that most companies were sacking their workers due to the harsh economic situation, adding that of those workers affected ask for part of their pension funds.

Odutola said:”This forum is to learn from you on those things that we could be doing to serve you better and so that within the firm, we can make those adjustment and hopefully, delight in satisfying you even as we go forward.”

“As we all know, we have had a very difficult 12 months, and that to a large extent was not unexpected. What we are experiencing today has taken a lot of people by surprise and within the pension circle, we have seen significant slowdown in activities.

“So contributions are not coming as consistently as they used to, within the private sectors, we are seeing workers been laid off and the consequences of that is one, the contributions, they will stop coming and two within a very short period we see those workers coming back for a portion of pension funds.”

According to the ARM boss, the forum would further help the clients to understand the different between annuity and other pension withdrawer scheme, stressing that from an investment stand point, clients staying in the programme withdrawer would ultimately benefit more from such an investment.