September 2024
18Sep

Dutch pension funds to report CO2 reduction progress

Pension funds should report annually about the progress they make in meeting their CO2 reduction targets. They must also provide more insight into their sustainable investments, Dutch pension regulator DNB announced on its website. Pension funds must report annually on the progress made in achieving their CO2 reduction targets DNB imposes the additional requirements to “enable itself to adequately supervise sustainability risks at pension funds.” This is because, in its own words, the regulator currently “does not have sufficient information to adequately supervise the...

September 18, 2024
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May 2024
23May

Dutch fund PGB ups ESG ante for a livable world

PGB Pensioendiensten, pension provider for Pensioenfonds PGB (PGB), the Netherlands €32 billion industry-wide pension fund, has rewritten its sustainable investment strategy. Backstopped by a new purpose to invest in a “liveable world” it has positioned investing sustainably at the centre of its strategy rather than as an “afterthought.” “For us, sustainability is an inseparable part of all our investments. We make an integrated assessment between return, risk, costs, and sustainability with every investment,” states the pension fund. The recently published strategy is rooted...

May 23, 2024
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21May

Dutch pension investor in $1bn Aus housing deal

Across three new buildings, Gurrowa Place in Melbourne will feature a 28-storey workplace, 560 build-to-rent apartments and around 1,100 student residences to be managed by Scape. Photo: Lendlease A Dutch pension investor is a stakeholder in a new partnership worth AUS$1 billion to develop purpose-built-student-accommodation across Australia. Together with APG Asset Management N.V. and global real estate investor, Ivanhoé Cambridge, Scape Australia says the new joint venture will strategically focus on urban locations close to “world-class universities” in the country. The partners said that the...

May 21, 2024
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April 2024
30Apr

Dutch pension sector’s funding ratio improves

In the first quarter of 2024, Dutch pension funds saw their funding ratios improve relative to the previous quarter, as the increase in their liabilities was lower than the growth in their investments. Total investments increased by €35 billion to €1,599 billion, while aggregate liabilities increased by €5 billion to €1,370 billion. The funding ratio reflects a pension fund’s current financial position, expressing the ratio between investments and liabilities. The average funding ratio stands at 116.7% The Dutch pension sector’s average...

April 30, 2024
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December 2023
04Dec

Dutch pension fund PMT sells most fossil fuel holdings

Pensioenfonds Metaal & Techniek (PMT) has divested from 40 oil and gas companies, but remains invested in nine companies with “sufficiently convincing plans” for the energy transition and carbon reduction. All of the retained companies are headquartered in Europe. Over the past two years, the pension fund had asked all companies in the oil and gas sector in which it invests to commit to the Paris Agreement and set sufficiently ambitious and substantiated CO2 reduction targets. Forty of those companies could not meet...

December 4, 2023
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November 2023
09Nov

Dutch pension funds fear ‘ill-fated idea’ to grandfather accruals

Agnes Joseph, an actuary for Achmea and a member of parliament (MP) candidate for the NSC party, is leading the proposal to make it easier to keep accruals in the current DB system – a plan that was unveiled last month when NSC published its election manifesto and discussed extensively on Monday during an election debate organised by IPE’s sister publication Pensioen Pro. According to Joseph, who is the NSC spokesperson for pensions, DB pensions should only be converted to DC if pension...

November 9, 2023
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September 2023
26Sep

Dutch pension funds move hundreds of billions in assets to mandates

Dutch pension funds have transferred €372bn in assets from investment funds to mandates over the past three and a half years. Mandates make it easier for funds to implement their responsible investment policies. Pension funds’ net investments in investment funds used to be fairly stable, but from the end of 2019 outflows gradually started to accelerate, according to figures from regulator DNB. A DNB spokesman said that conversations with pension funds have indicated that these holdings have generally been converted to...

September 26, 2023
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20Sep

Netherlands Leads Europe in Green Bonds, While Dutch Pensions Cut Asia Investments in 2022

The Netherlands is the leader among eurozone nations in raising green debt securities, according to data from De Nederlandsche Bank, the central bank of the Netherlands. The Dutch green bond has doubled in size since October 2020, according to the DNB, rising to 122.9 billion euros as of the end of July 2023 and up 21% from one year earlier. In contrast, the overall Dutch bond market contracted 3.4% during that same time. Dutch firms and the Netherlands government are, among European...

September 20, 2023
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August 2023
30Aug

Dutch pension funds slash €28bn of Asian investments

Sales and losses have led to allocations to the region falling by more than a fifth in 15 months. Allocations to Japan, and Taiwan were the most affected, according to central bank data. A combination of sales and losses have seen Dutch pension fund allocations to Asia fall by €27.5 billion ($30.3 billion) since the last quarter of 2021. Asia allocations by the industry in the first quarter of 2023 totalled €106.6 billion, down from €134.1 billion 15 months earlier, a...

August 30, 2023
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June 2023
30Jun

Analysis: Dutch pension fund reform spells investment rethink

An overhaul of the private pensions system in the Netherlands - the biggest in the European Union - is leading asset managers there to rethink how they invest 1.5 trillion euros ($1.64 trillion) of retirement savings. Asset managers for top Dutch pension funds said the reform, which takes effect on Saturday, could spark outflows from euro zone government bonds in favour of riskier assets and change the way such funds protect themselves from swings in interest rates. Changes approved in May...

June 30, 2023
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