Pension funds sink billions into a new world of risk

For decades, Dutch pension cash flowed to the place most likely to deliver steady and safe returns: government bonds.

No longer. Now the investor behind the Netherlands’ biggest pension fund is channeling retirement savings to a Belgian airport, a bicycle parking lot in Utrecht and toll roads in the US and Spain.

“Because of low interest rates, we have to cast our nets far and wide to search for returns,” said Thijs Knaap, senior investment strategist at APG Asset Management. “We increasingly invest more away from home. It’s where the growth is.”


In a world of stuttering expansion — where yields on $14 trillion of bonds have turned negative — income is draining away on government debt that matches their long-term liabilities. So they’re getting creative to meet ever moreelusive return targets. Knaap is at the vanguard of a move by the most conservative investors into areas far outside of their safety zone. They’re fueling a boom in alternative assets such as private equity, property and infrastructure that PwC estimates will jump to $21 trillion in 2025 from $10 trillion in 2016.

“You’ve had a mad rush into these private assets,” said Elliot Hentov, head of policy research at State Street Global Advisors.