FT: ABP and PFZW the laggards among 24 comparable pension funds

A Financial Times piece in June 2026 renewed scrutiny of the Netherlands' two largest pension funds, ABP (the fund for civil servants and teachers) and PFZW (healthcare and welfare), reporting that over the past fifteen years both have been the laggards within a group of 24 comparable international pension funds.

The underperformance is widely attributed to the funds' heavy interest-rate hedging, which backfired as rates rose. ABP closed 2025 with an investment result of -1.6%, which it blamed mainly on rising interest rates and a weaker US dollar; chair Harmen van Wijnen called it "a year with two sides of the same coin". PFZW fared worse, and economist Eduard Bomhoff, in a widely shared post, characterised its 2025 loss on interest-rate positioning as some €18bn — equivalent, he noted, to roughly €6,000 per healthcare worker — while criticising the fund's leadership for looking back on the year "with appropriate pride".

The ranking itself stems from a comparative study by the Finnish pension think-tank Eläketurvakeskus (ETK), which placed ABP and PFZW at the bottom for real, inflation-adjusted returns against peers in the US, Norway, Japan and elsewhere. ABP averaged about 3.9% real annual return over 2010–2024 and PFZW about 3.3%, well below the peer-group average. Both funds are transitioning to the new Dutch defined-contribution system, which will reduce their structural need for long-dated interest-rate hedges.

Read more: EW Magazine · IPE · De Telegraaf · @EduardBomhoff