“Share the wealth” might as well be the new mantra for managing money as more and more pension funds seek out alternative investments. Few, though, operate on quite the scale of the Netherlands’ ABP, which runs E150 billion ($183 billion) in retirement assets for civil servants and teachers. Last month Jean Frijns, ABP’s CIO, doled out E4 billion, on top of an earlier E6.5 billion, to an ABP affiliate, Dutch private equity specialist AlpInvest. The fresh funds make E20 billion-in-assets AlpInvest Europe’s biggest investor in private markets, from secondary private equity portfolios to venture capital to funds of funds.
“We like the asset class, and it is an integral part of our 20 percent allocation to alternatives -- real estate, hedge funds, private equity and commodities,” says Frijns, 57, who teaches part time at the Free University of Amsterdam. “The strength of AlpInvest is that it is a big enough player to co-invest in small buyouts, large buyouts and the secondary market as well as be a fund-of-funds manager.” And AlpInvest is just the start, adds Frijns. ABP, Europe’s No. 1 pension manager, plans to commit E12 billion to private equity by 2007. That would make it the second-biggest investor in that asset class after California’s CalPERS, with roughly E12.4 billion.
As for Utrecht-based AlpInvest, it needs some time to digest all its new riches: PGGM, which handles retirement funds for Dutch health care workers, just put E2 billion more of its E52 billion into the firm, which it co-owns with ABP. That brings its total investment in AlpInvest to E9 billion. “We have two very big and very demanding clients,” says AlpInvest CEO Volkert Doeksen, “and quite enough money for the time being.”
