(June 17, 2014) — The second largest Dutch pension investor has created a fiduciary arm to enhance its services to its current clients and its offering to smaller peers, aiCIO has learned, as consolidation accelerates among the country’s pension funds.
PGGM Fiduciary Advice “enables our clients to be in control of their investments and exert countervailing power towards their investment managers,” the group said.
PGGM manages more than €167 billion on behalf of PFZW, the pension fund for the healthcare and social work sector in the Netherlands, and the pension funds for general practitioners, architects, security personnel, and house painters.
Last year PGGM announced the merger with A&O Services, which oversaw retirement assets for the house painting and decorating sector. It recently picked up the aiCIO award for innovation thanks to its “Blank Sheet of Paper” concept to governance that clarifies its investment approach along with its interaction with its largest client PFZW.
There has been a push in the Netherlands to bring smaller pools of assets together and create larger investors, which have scale, to bring in-house better experience and expertise and manage capital in a cost efficient way.
Chris Limbach, one of aiCIO’s Forty Under Forty, heads up the fiduciary arm. “By adding the fiduciary advice to what we had already, we have progressed our proposition to pension funds,” he said. “It should make PGGM a more attractive proposition for pension funds that are looking to partner with another.”
Limbach said PGGM is keen to be part of the consolidating Dutch market. He added that the new service would not be made available as a stand-alone product for funds, but rather as part of the package offered to investors and their trustees joining PGGM’s cooperative network.
“Combining advice, execution, and fiduciary advice allows trustees of pension funds to be in total control,” Limbach said. “Obviously, any fund that wants to join us could be up to speed and compliant with regulations set out by the regulator, the Dutch National Bank.”
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