Dutch animal-feed producer Nutreco has offloaded the €270m pension fund for its Dutch subsidiaries to the insurance group Aegon in a sign that this kind of pensions deal, now quite common in the UK, is catching on in the Netherlands too.

The fund will be transferred to Aegon on January 1, Nutreco said in a statement yesterday, following agreement from unions and its pensioners' association. The country's regulator, the DNB, has yet to approve the deal.