The €7bn pension fund for Dutch medical consultants, SPMS, has attributed a 0.18% loss over the first nine months of the year mainly to losses on its fixed income holdings.

It said it lost 4.5% on its 42% bond allocation due to rising interest rates, while its 70% interest hedge has lost 3.5% year to date.

By contrast, the scheme’s 70% currency hedge of the US dollar, Japanese yen and British pound returned 1%, according to Jeroen Steenvoorden, the pension fund’s director.

He noted that, without the hedge, SPMS’s return over the first three quarters would have been 2.24%.

Steenvoorden added that the scheme’s 39% equity allocation returned 11% over the same period, while its returns on property and hedge funds were -0.44% and 5.9%, respectively.

In the wake of rising interest rates – and reduced liabilities as a consequence – SPMS’s coverage ratio increased by 5.6 percentage points to 115.7% in September, and to 119.1% in October.

The pension fund returned 0.77% over the third quarter.

Meanwhile, the €14.5bn pension fund for road transport, Vervoer, reported a 2.1% return on its norm portfolio during October.

Its investments in fixed income and equity generated returns of 0.7% and 0.9%, respectively, while its hedge on interest and currency risk returned 0.4% and 0.1% respectively.

Vervoer saw its preliminary coverage ratio improve to 112.3% at October-end.