The 33 largest pension funds in the Netherlands had relatively less exposure to their domestic economy in 2014 than the precious year as a proportion of overall assets, although the overall value of Dutch assets increased.

This is according to figures supplied by the supervisor, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), at the request of IPE’s sister publication Pensioen Pro.

Investments in Dutch equity and fixed income (excluding liquidity) increased by €5bn overall to €100bn in total, most of which was attributable to Dutch government bonds, whose value in portfolios rose from €40bn at the end of 2013 to €47bn at the end of last year.

Dutch mortgage holdings increased in overall value from €11.5bn to €13bn.

Property investments dropped off from €21.5bn to €18bn.

Despite the overall increase, the Dutch share of overall portfolio holdings decreased slightly from 13% to 11.5%.

According to the DNB, the value assets in other geographical markets outpaced that of Dutch holdings.

The figures are based on quarterly reports, in which the 33 largest funds are required to give a geographical breakdown of their holdings.

This group represents around 80% of the invested assets of Dutch pension funds.

In 2013, the supervisor reported that 14% of the assets of Dutch pension funds were invested in the Netherlands, although these data were based on a one-off survey among a sizeable group of funds and therefore not directly comparable with that now provided by the DNB.

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