ABP, the €286 billion government-workers’ retirement scheme and Europe’s largest pension fund; the healthcare scheme PFZW; and metal-workers’ scheme PMT are already on board. Insurers Achmea, Aegon and Delta Lloyd are also supporting the plan.
In an announcement made last week, the Dutch government said it had identified a need for up to €40 billion in fresh spending on infrastructure, green energy and energy-efficiency, residential care-homes and schools, over the years to 2020. It wants to reform the country’s mortgage market and boost lending to small businesses. All are areas where bank finance has dried up, and the new initiative is an attempt to replace it with direct investment by the buyside. The government is setting up an agency, the Netherlands Investment Institution or NII, to coordinate these efforts, claiming it should direct “billions of euros” to investment in long-term projects.
Jacqueline Lommen, head of European pensions at Dutch fund manager Robeco, which is also involved in parts of the investment initiative, said: “All the countries in Europe have the same kind of financing needs in order to boost economic growth, but while others like Portugal, Ireland, Hungary and Poland have taken step of forcibly nationalising smaller or larger parts of pension funds and pension insurance companies, in the Netherlands we have come up with a more sustainable way".
Details have still to be worked out, but according to a statement to the Dutch parliament by economic affairs minister Henk Kamp last week, the government wants to start this process on October 1, with the agency operational “as soon as possible”.
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