EUROPE - A Greek exit from the euro-zone would generate additional market shocks, but it would not cause major long-term damage, according to the BVV.

Rainer Jakubowski, a member of the board at the pension fund for German banks, pointed out that euro-zone officials had had two years to prepare for such an eventuality.

He also claimed that, in two or three years' time, people would look back on the ongoing Europe's sovereign debt crisis and "be surprised to find how easy the solution was".

"The real problem," he said, "is Spain or Italy becoming infected. You cannot plan for this scenario as an individual institution - this would even question the existence of the euro itself."

Jakubowski also said he expected interest rate markets to remain in an "artificial state - as was currently the case with German Bunds - for years to come.

"Unfortunately, we'll have to live with that for some time still," he said.

Dutch pensions giant APG recently acknowledged it had explored a wide range of possible outcomes for the Greek sovereign debt crisis and their impact on the asset manager that were "not limited to the country's leaving the euro", according to spokesman Harmen Geers.

In the event that Greece did exit the European single currency, Geers said APG - asset manager for the €261bn Dutch civil service scheme ABP and the €34bn pension fund for the building industry Bpf Bouw - had agreed with a number of its clients to "change its asset mix" or adopt a "more dynamic" investment policy.

The spokesman also said internal calculations had shown that a Greek exit would affect neither the coverage ratio nor the pension rights of any of APG's seven pension fund clients.

He said APG was expecting - for the time being, anyway - a "muddle-through" scenario for the euro-zone as a whole.

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