The pension fund for general practitioners (GPs) began the year with a new concentrated equity strategy built around just 65 stocks and framed as a long-term, low-turnover approach. It pledged a buy-and-hold portfolio “with as few transactions as possible”.
Ten months on, the fund has already divested from six companies, and seven new companies have been acquired. This means the portfolio now consists of 66 companies.
The quick portfolio changes seem at odds with the GP fund’s choice of a buy-and-hold portfolio, as indicated by Nienke Kuppens, a strategist at the fund, in an interview in January.
Moreover, the fund already made its first two sales after just a few months; drug manufacturer Merck and Topbuild, a US firm specialised in isolation material, were sold last spring.
Selling at a cost
In the second half of 2025, the GP fund, which invests about a quarter of its €11bn in assets in the new strategy, sold another four companies. These were: the American chip machine manufacturer Applied Materials; Zara owner Industria de Diseño Textil; the German chip manufacturer Infineon; and cosmetics manufacturer L’Oréal.
The exact dates these stocks were sold are not known, but all the companies in question underperformed their benchmark indices this year, with the exception of Topbuild, which saw its share price rocket in the second half of this year. This, however, happened only after the GP fund had sold its stake at a loss.
The pension fund declined to provide an explanation for the changes made to the portfolio. However, a spokesperson told IPE the decisions were made by the external manager who manages the strategy, the name of which the fund does not reveal.
A turnover of about 10% of the portfolio per year, “as far as the pension fund is concerned, does not clash with the goal of a long-term value strategy”, according to the spokesperson.
The fund now says it expects an average holding period of five to 10 years, even though back in January Kuppens spoke of a holding period of “at least 10 years”.
Rapid changes
The rapid changes shortly after the start of the portfolio indicate critics of the fund’s switch to a concentrated portfolio may have a point.
According to Rob Bauer, a finance professor at Maastricht University, it is “quite strange” that the GP fund already sold six companies within a year after the start of the portfolio, despite its promise of a buy-and-hold portfolio.
“It shows it is just very difficult to choose the 65 best companies from more than 4,000 stocks. You can make mistakes,” he noted.
Possibly, the GP fund has realised it had not bought the “65 best companies” it initially thought it had, said Bauer.
“Maybe they have found better companies now, but then they have to sell other companies because they can’t have too many in their portfolio. This actually proves that it is not smart to fill in a portfolio as statically as the GPs have done.”
The ‘faux pas’ of the GP fund with the six aforementioned companies does not necessarily mean that the total return of the portfolio will be disappointing, however. None of the companies sold were in the top 10 of the fund’s equity positions, according to a document on its website.
The GP fund invests most in TSMC, Nvidia and Microsoft, companies that have posted high returns this year.
This article was first published on Pensioen Pro, IPE’s Dutch sister publication
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