NETHERLANDS - The assets of Dutch hedge funds have increased from €2.9bn to €13.3bn in the past two years, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) has said.
Over the same period, the number of Netherlands-registered hedge funds rose by 20 to 99, according to the pension supervisor in its statistical report.
However, the DNB attributed the significant increase of assets mainly to new tax-transparent funds for joint account (FGR) that have been established by large pension funds.
The schemes have also transferred their hedge fund investments into the new FGRs.
Without the FGRs, the assets of Dutch hedge funds increased from €2bn to €2.8bn, mainly due to the introduction of new funds and returns on investments, the pension regulator said.
According to the DNB, approximately one-third of Dutch hedge funds are funds-of-funds, with combined assets of €11.2bn, which have invested more than 95% of their assets abroad.
The pension supervisor said it believed this cross-border orientation was caused by the relatively larger scale of foreign funds, the large number of available funds and their longer track record.
The remaining two-thirds of Dutch hedge funds are direct funds, with an active investment strategy, according to the supervisor, which added that most of them have a limited scale of €35m on average.
A majority of Dutch direct hedge funds is following a long/short strategy, the DNB said.
No comments yet