In a landmark decision, Dutch healthcare scheme PFZW has made the switch from passive investing to active management, slashing the number of listed stocks it invests in from over 2,500 to 800 companies.
The new actively managed portfolio will be managed by Robeco, Man Numeric, Lazard, Schroders, M&G, UBS Asset Management and its in-house asset manager PGGM.
As a result of the changes, the Netherlands’ second-largest pension fund with €248bn in assets under management parted ways with BlackRock, Legal & General Investment Management and AQR Capital Management, which managed index portfolios for the fund.
According to PFZW, the new portfolio has a risk profile similar to the broad FTSE market index, with only a marginally higher tracking error.
Caterpillar divestment
PFZW also made headlines as it divested from Caterpillar, which supplies special bulldozers to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). The IDF uses these to unlawfully destroy Palestinian property in the Occupied Territories.
While PFZW stopped short of linking its divestment directly to supplying armoured bulldozers to the IDF, it did say Caterpillar no longer meets “international norms” and was therefore sold.
Other funds, including metal industry sector schemes PMT and PME, also divested from Caterpillar and were more straightforward in these decisions. PME said the use of Caterpillar bulldozers in the occupied West Bank was “not in line with international treaties and thereby violates human rights.”
French government debt
Dutch pension funds are among the largest foreign investors in French government bonds, holding €70.4bn between them at the end of the second quarter.
Civil service scheme ABP and healthcare sector scheme PFZW are the most exposed, according to data gathered by IPE.
Detailhandel, being significantly smaller than the other two, has the largest relative exposure. The fund owned €3.3bn in French government bonds at the end of the second quarter, representing more than 10% of the fund’s assets.
Items to note:
- IPE’s sister publication Impact Investor will hold its annual conference – Future-proofing impact: investing in a shifting world – on 11 November at The Hague Conference Centre New Babylon, The Netherlands
Tjibbe Hoekstra
IPE Netherlands Correspondent
This news briefing was published earlier in the week. If you would like to receive it regularly, on your ‘IPE profile’, go to ‘My Newsletters‘ and select any from the list.
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