The €137bn healthcare scheme PFZW has invested an undisclosed amount into a €3.2bn Rabobank portfolio of corporate loans. 

The private risk-sharing transaction involved a stake in more than 500 corporate loans, mostly to Dutch companies.

Rabobank and PFZW said the deal gave the pension fund access to a credit-risk portfolio that increased the diversity of its asset mix, as well as a “stable and robust” long-term return, but declined to provide further details.

PFZW pointed out that it had some experience with similar risk-sharing transactions, adding that their added value had remained, even through the financial crisis.

Rabobank said the deal would reduce its own credit risk, allowing it to free up capital for new corporate lending.

Jan-Willem van Oostveen, PFZW’s manager of financial and investment policy, said the pension fund “really appreciated” working with banks with a good track record in corporate lending.

“This collaboration shows how Dutch pension funds and banks together can stimulate investments in the Dutch economy,” he said.

In the opinion of Tanja Cuppen, chief financial risk officer at Rabobank International, the new cooperation is a sign of the growing opportunities for Dutch pension funds to participate in the financing the local economy.

Both PFZW and Rabobank declined to provide details about the ratio between local and foreign loans, or how both players were to share the credit risk.

A spokesman for Rabobank said local loans were provided to large companies, and that loans to companies overseas would focus on food and agri business, one of the bank’s core sectors.

According to Maurice Wilbrink, spokesman for PFZW, the expected duration of the transaction would be between five and six years on average.

“We have agreed that, during the first three years of the transaction, Rabobank may replace the loans that are being paid off by new loans matching the agreed criteria,” he said.

“After this three-year period, the loans in the portfolio pay off.”

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