APG, the largest Dutch pension asset manager with approximately €600bn in assets, recorded a negative return of 1.6% for 2025, partially due to its underperforming actively managed listed and private equity strategies.
In its annual report, the pension fund announced that active investments in equities – totalling €33bn – fell by 1.6% over the 12 months, about 6.9% less than the benchmark.
Over five years, while the active equity strategy achieved an annual return of 9.6%, this resulted in a benchmark underperformance of 2.4%.
Last year, APG Asset Management chief executive Ronald Wuijster – who stepped down on March 1 – said investment performance had to improve.
Alongside its active equity management, APG invests €127bn for clients in a passive index strategy – which holds approximately 80% of the listed equities of APG’s main client ABP since 2024.
According to the fund, the strategy returned 5.6% in 2025 – an underperformance of 0.05%. APG did not clarify which benchmarks were used.
Tech underweight
The fund is underweight tech stocks within the active strategy. As such, APG said that gains in the index were highly concentrated within a limited group of companies that benefited from an AI-related rally, including Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet.
APG’s active strategies reacted “unfavourably to tariff uncertainty and the strong concentration of market performance within the IT sector”, the firm said.
“In addition, the shifting focus on sustainable and responsible investment caused some inhibition of returns in the satellite portfolios,” APG said, adding: “In 2025, companies that benefited from the AI theme were particularly rewarded by the market, regardless of their environmental, social or governance performance.”
Private equity
The fund’s €49bn private equity holdings also fell. Reporting a decrease of 3.8%, APG said “the large returns on AI are currently bypassing the smaller companies in the private equity portfolio”.
APG said “the current picture” falls below its ambitions “and has caused us to reassess a number of strategies”, adding that “nevertheless, we remain confident that our active strategies can once again outperform benchmarks over time”.
