NETHERLANDS – Belgium’s Petercam Bank has hired two staff from the Ahold pension scheme to help it enter the Dutch institutional asset management market.

The move follows the breakdown in May of a derivatives joint venture it had with NIB Capital, which is co-owned by the two largest Dutch pension funds, ABP and PGGM.

Petercam said the new institutional service would be offered by Petercam Bank in Amsterdam as of the start of this month.

“To facilitate this new service Stefan ten Brink and Eric Bolijn have joined Petercam Asset Management,” it said. “Both of them were previously employed by Stichting Ahold Pensioenfonds, where they were responsible for the European equity portfolio.”

Petercam, a partnership owned by 17 active partners, has more than €10bn under management in total. According to its website, Petercam Institutional Asset Management has more than €4.8bn under management.

It has offices in Brussels, Amsterdam, Luxemburg, Geneva and New York as well as Ghent, Hasselt, Antwerp and Liège.