BENELUX – Pieter van Daalen, managing director of Schroders Investment Management Benelux, has left the company.

A Schroders spokesman said van Daalen left in July “by mutual consent”. He added that institutional sales director Willem Jan van Gijzen is currently acting country head and that the firm may make an external hire.

The Rotterdam-based operation has 14 pension fund clients and six staff, according to ‘International Pension Funds and their Advisors’. It manages 1.5 billion euros for Dutch institutional clients.

Van Daalen was quoted by FT Mandate last year as saying that Belgian pension funds were increasingly appointing managers to run specialist mandates instead of one balanced manager.

He was also quoted saying it has been hard for foreign asset managers to break into the Belgian pension fund market due to local players charging low fees.

Last month the 200-year-old firm said it lost four billion pounds (5.9 billion euros) in balanced mandates in the first half as UK clients continued to restructure their portfolios – but added the revenue impact was “limited”.

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