The €27bn defined benefit scheme of oil and gas firm Shell has decided to appoint BlackRock as its new fiduciary manager, throwing in doubt the future of its in-house asset manager SAMCo in the process.
Only two years ago, SAMCo managed almost €70bn in assets from various Shell pension funds around the world, but it has since seen its assets under management more than halve due to a confluence of factors.
Two months earlier, another Dutch pension asset manager, Blue Sky Group, was acquired by Achmea Investment Management. The €25bn fiduciary manager of the three KLM pension funds had initiated a search for a buyer in March this year after it had realised it lacked the scale to remain competitive in the longer term.
Over the summer, technology industry scheme PME made headlines with its pledge to invest in nuclear power plants in the Netherlands that the new Dutch government plans to build. The pension fund considers nuclear energy as necessary to complete the energy transition in the country.
The fund’s members, some of whom work for companies that are part of the supply chain for nuclear power plants, supported the move with 63% in favour of investments in nuclear energy.
Meanwhile, pension funds continued their preparations for the upcoming switch to defined contribution arrangements by taking more interest rate risk off the table. The average interest rate hedge exceeded the 70% mark for the first time ever in the second quarter of the year, according to figures from pension regulator DNB.
In other news, the president of financial regulator AFM advocated in a newspaper column for pension funds to be required to consult their members about their ESG preferences. According to Laura van Geest, it is “a missed opportunity” that pension funds are not required to take their members’ views on ESG and sustainability into account when designing their investment strategies.
Recently, some politicians have accused pension funds of focusing excessively on sustainability in their investment policies, to the expense of returns. Before the summer recess in July, member of parliament Thierry Aartsen filed a parliamentary motion asking pension funds to stop investing in “an idealistic or activist way,” which was supported by a large majority. Yesterday, Wednesday 25 September, Aartsen spoke about his motion in a congress in Rotterdam organised by IPE’s Dutch sister publication Pensioen Pro. During his talk, he maintained pension funds must put return first. He also criticised the decision of some pension funds to divest from oil and gas firms.
Items to note:
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Tjibbe Hoekstra
IPE Netherlands correspondent
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