PGGM, the €225bn asset manager of healthcare sector scheme PFZW, has disbanded an academic advisory council after its four members criticised the firm’s switch to a new responsible investment strategy.
PGGM already shut down the advisory council in 2023, but the decision was only made public just before Christmas 2024 by financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, which is part of the same company as IPE.
The academic advisory council had voiced strong criticism about PGGM’s plans to move to a more concentrated portfolio and to make sustainability as important a component in its investment strategy as risk management and financial returns (an approach dubbed “3D-investing” by the firm).
The four members of the council were Rob Bauer of Maastricht University, Jules van Binsbergen of Pennsylvania-based Wharton School, Esther Eiling of Amsterdam University, and Arun Muralidhar, a US-based investment consultant.
After the advisory council was disbanded, the four members sent an official complaint to pension regulators DNB and AFM. IPE has learnt that the council’s criticism focused on the possible negative impact on risk and return of PGGM’s plans to switch to a more concentrated, impact-based portfolio.
Recently, PFZW’s investment committee chair Dirk Schoenmaker spoke about this new approach in an IPE podcast.
According to Het Financieele Dagblad, the former members of the academic advisory council also believe PFZW’s participants have not sufficiently been consulted about the scheme’s new investment approach.
According to PGGM, members have been consulted. However, the pension asset manager declined to say what questions they were asked exactly.
Sick leave
Within PGGM’s internal organisation, the move to a new investment policy has also sparked unrest. The firm’s chief economist Guy Verberne has been on sick leave since September 2023 following a conflict with PGGM’s investment management chief Geraldine Leegwater.
According to PGGM, Verberne was “unacceptably critical” about the firm’s plans for a new investment strategy.
PGGM also accused him of “a lack of self-reflection” and “an inability to receive feedback,” according to a court verdict published last October.
In this court case, PGGM tried to fire Verberne by claiming that the chief economist was “misfunctioning”. This was, however, dismissed by the judge because PGGM had made insufficient efforts to find a different role for Verberne.
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