NETHERLANDS – Dutch investment institutions saw their combined assets contract by 2.4% to €568bn during the second quarter due to falling markets, according to regulator De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB).

The investment funds lost 3.7% alone on their €233bn in equity holdings, while the MSCI World index lost 1.3% over the same period, it said.

The DNB noted that Dutch institutions’ €36bn of investments in emerging market equities were hit particularly hard, falling by nearly 11% and underperforming the MSCI Emerging Markets index by 0.6 percentage points.

The institutions also lost 2.3% on their €192bn in fixed income investments.

According to the regulator, net deposits in the second quarter amounted to €900m, compared with €3.6bn over the previous three months.

Fixed income and commodity funds, with net deposits of €4bn and €1.3bn, respectively, were the largest contributors.

By contrast, investors withdrew €3.1bn, €900m and €800m from equity funds, property funds and mixed funds, respectively.

The DNB also pointed out that the number of investment funds rose to a record level of 1,556 during the second quarter.