Dutch pension funds invested more in Europe in 2025 and less in the United States

News
Read aloud

Pension funds in the Netherlands increased their investment holdings in Europe in 2025 and reduced them in the United States, as revealed by new DNB figures. They also disposed of a relatively large volume of equities to rebalance their asset allocation following the rise in share prices in recent years. 

Published: 31 March 2026

Digitaal beursdisplay met rijen financiële cijfers en koersen in groen, rood en blauw, die stijgende en dalende aandelenwaarden weergeven.

© ANP

In 2025, pension funds sold €30 billion (net) worth of US securities. Broken down, this comprised €18 billion in sovereign and corporate bonds and €12 billion in equities.

Source: DNB statistics

At De Nederlandsche Bank, we independently compile statistics on the Dutch financial sector and economy. This article is based on these statistics. More information on our statistics and all dashboards can be found on our Statistics homepage.

They also sold European equities (€5 billion), but this was offset by the purchase of €27 billion in European debt securities. On balance, pension funds invested a total of €23 billion (rounded) in such European securities, favouring sovereign bonds in particular (€20 billion), especially German and Spanish sovereign bonds. They were more likely to sell French sovereign bonds.

Pension funds also bought €7 billion worth of European corporate bonds, showing a clear preference for French and Dutch companies and financial institutions.

Incidentally, pension funds invest more in US than in European equities, partly because the US stock market is larger than its European counterpart. At the same time, they hold mainly European sovereign bonds. Disposals of US bonds were therefore relatively higher than disposals of US equities.

Equities sold to rebalance asset allocation

While pension funds invested in European debt securities last year, they sold €36 billion worth of worldwide equities, partly to rebalance their investment portfolios. This is because pension funds aim to keep the ratio between their equity and bond holdings within certain limits with an eye to managing the risks and returns of the overall portfolio. Due to price gains on the stock markets on the one hand and falling bond prices on the other, pension funds had invested ‘too much’ in equities relative to bonds.

In addition to US (€12 billion) and European equities (€5 billion), pension funds also sold a considerable amount of equities from other countries (€19 billion), including Japan, Taiwan and the Cayman Islands (€3 billion each). The latter mainly concerns Chinese companies operating in the United States.    

More information

Discover related articles

Interesting articles