APG CEO Dick Sluimers to Resign | Chief Investment Officer

sluimers 2 Dick Sluimers APG Group’s chief executive Dick Sluimers will leave the pension manager after 25 years.

The €417 billion ($470 billion) asset manager for Dutch pension fund ABP announced Thursday that Sluimers would step down as chairman of the group’s executive board on January 1, 2016.

APG cited Sluimers’s decision to resign as a result of the near completion of the group’s three-year restructuring program. The reorganization, which included the loss of about 200 jobs, was described in 2012 as an “integration of business units… with the aim of preserving the future health of the business.”

According to APG, Sluimers considered next year “a natural point in time” to step down and focus on “other public administration and consulting work.”

“Dick’s contribution is of inestimable value to APG, as well as the client pension funds and the pension sector in the Netherlands as a whole,” said Bart Le Blanc, chairman of APG’s supervisory board, in a release. “While his leadership will be sorely missed in a period in which the pension system is undergoing fundamental changes, we understand his motivation. It is now up to APG to find a good successor.”

Sluimers first joined the asset manager as a member of the ABP board of trustees. He later served as CFO and chairman of the ABP board of directors. He was named chairman of the APG Group executive board in 2008.

During his time at APG, Sluimers was outspoken about the Netherlands’ stringent regulations for domestic asset managers, arguing that the rules were detrimental to Dutch pension providers.

Sluimers previously worked in the Hague, holding policy positions in various departments including the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment.