Vervoer, the large sector scheme for the Netherlands’ private road transport system, posted a 12.7% gain in 2016.

The €23bn transport scheme said this preliminary return figure included increases of 8% on fixed income, 11.2% on equity, 8.7% on real estate and 1.8% on infrastructure.

In the fourth quarter, Vervoer’s investments yielded 3.4% over the course of the fourth quarter, with its equity holdings – roughly a third of the portfolio – generating 7.5%.

The gains helped the pension scheme raise its funding ratio to 101.4%.

However, the quarterly equity return was offset by a 0.2% loss on Vervoer’s fixed income allocation, and losses of 1.5% and 1.3% on property and infrastructure, respectively.

Vervoer’s performance outpaced that of other large Dutch schemes. PFZW posted a 12% return in 2016, while PME, PMT, Philips, and KLM’s cabin staff scheme all saw gains of between 10% and 11%.

Meanwhile, the €3.3bn pension fund of applied technical research institute TNO reported an annual profit of 9.7%.

With gains of 12.9%, private equity was the best returning asset class of the TNO scheme last year. It said that fixed income and mortgages combined generated 9.4%, while equity and real estate yielded 8.8% and 6.9%, respectively, over the year.

Following the decline of swap rates, TNO gained 1% from its interest rate hedge. However, the pension fund lost 0.3% on its currency hedge of the US dollar, sterling, and the yen.

Funding of the Pensioenfonds TNO rose slightly during the year to 110.5%.

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