Eduard van Gelderen, the newly appointed CIO for ABP, Europe’s largest pension fund, yesterday gave his first interview since taking the job.
ABP is the pension fund for Netherlands’ public workers and controls over $360 billion in assets.
In the interview, van Gelderen addressed the trend of some pension funds scaling back their hedge fund allocations – and said his fund will have no part in it. From Chief Investment Officer:
“No,” says Eduard van Gelderen, the man overseeing investments for ABP, Europe’s largest pension fund. “No. Absolutely not. We are extremely happy with them [hedge funds].”
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“[For us], hedge funds are taken care of by New Holland Capital”—an independent holding that span out of APG almost a decade ago—“and we are extremely pleased with the track record they have shown over the last years.”
At the end of 2013, ABP had assets of around €288 billion, of which it had a 5% strategic allocation to hedge funds, according to its annual report. This allocation outperformed its benchmark by 619 basis points last year and van Gelderen—who took over as CIO from Angelien Kemna on September 1— is resolute that hedge funds will remain a part of the portfolio APG manages for Europe’s largest pension.
ABP’s hedge fund portfolio is more than four and a half times larger than CalPERS’ portfolio was before it pulled out of the asset class.
Read the full interview here.
Photo credit: “EU-Netherlands” by NuclearVacuum. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution