Dutch pension asset manager Achmea Investment Management has acquired the €25bn asset management arm of Blue Sky Group. As a result of the deal, Achmea IM will become the new fiduciary manager of the three pension funds of Dutch airline KLM.
The deal pushes Achmea IM’s assets under management above €200bn and into the top three of Dutch fiduciary managers with only APG and PGGM sporting higher assets under management.
The three KLM pension funds for pilots, cabin crew and ground personnel, which have €24.5bn in assets between them, will all become fiduciary clients of Achmea IM after the conclusion of the deal, which still awaits regulatory approval.
The 40 employees of Blue Sky Group’s asset management division will join Achmea IM and will work from the firm’s office in Amsterdam, with a possibility to also work from the firm’s headquarters in Zeist.
The deal does not come as a surprise, as Blue Sky Group announced in March that it was looking for a buyer that could continue the same kind of fiduciary services provided by Blue Sky Group, as it had realised it was “not big enough to remain a frontrunner”.
In the Netherlands, there are only a handful of commercial asset managers that offer a full-service fiduciary package. Besides Achmea IM, these include Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Kempen and Aegon Asset Management.
Maureen Schlejen, Achmea IM’s chief executive officer, hailed the deal as “an important step in the growth strategy of Achmea IM”.
She added that Blue Sky Group was “a perfect fit” for her organisation because of the firm’s exclusive focus on fiduciary management – an area where Achmea IM wants to grow “to reach benefits of scale”.
The three KLM pension funds, which each own a third of Blue Sky Group, declined to comment on the deal. Financial details were not disclosed.
Blue Sky Group pocketed a total of €23m in fiduciary management fees in 2023. The firm’s profits totalled just €800,000 but this included the results of its pension administration arm.
Investment pools
Most of Blue Sky Group’s assets under management are invested through investment pools in which the three KLM pension funds participate. Three small pension funds (PMA, Stap and IFF) also invest some €0.5bn between them in these pools.
All fiduciary assets are managed by external asset managers, as Blue Sky Group does not manage any money in house. All investment pools will be transferred integrally to Achmea IM.
“We will now, together with the pension funds, evaluate the future of these pools and, more generally, the investment strategies of the three KLM pension funds,” said Schlejen.
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