Medellin-based pension-funds manager Protección announced that its full-year 2021 net income dipped to COP$276 billion (US$72.6 million), down from COP$291 billion (US$76.5 million) in 2020.

Gross income nevertheless actually rose year-on-year, to COP$1.15 trillion (US$302 million) in 2021 versus COP$1.1 trillion (US$289 million) in 2020.

Commenting on the dip in profitability, Protección president Juan David Correa cited “higher disability rates as a result of Covid-19 and the change in the [Colombian] minimum wage due to an increase higher-than-inflation, which generated greater impacts on the [pension payment] provisions.

“For Protección, we insist on the urgency of solving this structural problem by the competent authorities, and we will continue as we have done so far, proposing alternative solutions,” he added.

Protección is one of the three biggest pension fund managers in Colombia, with COP$128 trillion (US$33.6 billion) in assets-under-management for its 8 million customers, the company noted.

However, all pension-fund managers in Colombia now face the possibility of potentially disastrous confiscation of private pensions as currently proposed by left-wing Colombian presidential Candidate Gustavo Petro.

As a result, “2022 will be a transcendent year,” Correa said. “As a country we will go through an electoral period during the first half of the year, which will mark the social, economic and reform agenda for the coming years.

“It is essential that the next government advance a pension reform that promotes principles of equity, sustainability and coverage, as well as the search for mechanisms that allow the complementarity of pension models with those of insurance and that guarantee the sustainability of the system,” he added.

On another front, Correa revealed in a March 23 interview with Colombian business newspaper La Republica that Protección this year realized a one-time COP$1.1 trillion (US$289 million) gain for selling to Cali-based Gilinski Group all of its shareholdings in multinational foods giant Nutresa and multinational insurance/health-care giant Sura,both of which are based in Medellin.