Northern Trust Asset Management (NTAM) has hired four former APG quantitative equity portfolio managers and researchers as part of a bigger effort to beef up its quantitative factor investing platform in continental Europe.
The hiring of Gijsbert de Lange, Edmund Wadge, Tim Zwinkels and Maarten Smit, who all left APG in December or January, is part of a wider recruitment exercise for NTAM’s Amsterdam office.
In total, it has hired 13 investment personnel, including quantitative researchers, portfolio analysts and quantitative developers, in the Dutch capital.
The move follows recent additions to NTAM’s global quantitative capabilities, including the appointments of Guido Baltussen as head of quantitative strategies, international, in November 2023; Milan Vidojevic as director of quantitative solutions, international, in January 2024; and Jan Rohof as director of quantitative solutions, Asia- Pacific, in November 2024.
NTAM manages a total of $43bn (€41.5bn) in quantitative strategies across equities and fixed income.
APG will not replace the departed quant investors as it terminated its quantitative equities strategy last autumn after its main client, ABP, decided factor investing no longer has a place in its new investment policy (see box).
“The colleagues involved have found new jobs both within and outside APG,” a spokesperson for the pension asset manager said.
ABP switches to index portfolio with fewer stocks
ABP, the owner and main client of APG, has cut the number of stocks it holds in its developed market equities portfolio from 2,000 to 1,100 as part of a strategy revamp announced in 2023.
It said that 80% of the €134bn portfolio is now invested in a new custom-made index while the remaining 20% sits in a concentrated, actively managed portfolio with 125-150 stocks.
APG will manage this portfolio together with “a limited number” of external managers, according to an ABP spokesperson.
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