How do we invest?

Everyone involved in our investments can work sustainably by agreeing on clear principles.

What matters in our investments?

PME aims to realise a good and affordable pension for every participant. The pension contributions paid by you and your employer are, by themselves, not enough for the future. That is why we invest.

We carefully choose the investments that fit our envisaged return and the risk we deem acceptable. In this process we take into account both the long and the short term: we consider the pensions we currently pay out, as well as pensions that will start in 30 years.

Furthermore, we take into account your wishes and expectations, as a PME participant. That is why we invest as sustainably as possible.

Agreements with the asset manager

What matters to us when it comes to investments - such as return, risks, costs and sustainable investments - is laid down in PME's investment framework (pdf) (in Dutch). This investment framework constitutes the foundation for all investments and for the investment policy.

Asset manager MN gives us advice about the investment policy and about outsourcing investments to other asset managers. MN also makes some of the investments for us itself, such as hedging interest and managing the cash flow (the pension money that must be readily available).

PME has signed a contract with MN and with the external asset managers. As commissioning party, PME is always in charge and lays down it own investment policy. PME evaluates the outsourcing of asset management annually, based on performance agreements, and reports about it in the annual report.

New investment policy 2020-2025

At the end of 2019 we laid down the strategic investment policy for 2020-2025. It is expected that the new policy will yield a higher return at a lower risk.

For every investment category we decide on a strategy that describes how we wish to invest in this category. We take into account not only the objective, but also the return, risks, costs and investing responsibly. We also determine which type of asset managers (active, passive) is the best fit for this strategy. The objective and guidelines for each category are laid down in the mandate, which must be followed by the external asset managers.

The most important change is that we will gradually hedge more interest up to a maximum of 60%. We do so in order to compensate for any interest drops more effectively. We evaluate this aspect every year and review our strategy accordingly.

In addition, we gradually expand our higher-return investments up to a maximum of 60%. We choose a better spread by expanding our investments in highyield, real estate, private equity and infrastructure.