Posted By Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on February 17, 2025
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - ABP, the Netherlands' largest pension fund, has sold its shares in tech companies Meta and Alphabet, its CEO told Dutch newspaper FD in an interview published on Monday.
CEO Harmen van Wijnen said the companies no longer fit the fund's governance criteria. FD reported last month that ABP had sold its shares in Tesla for the same reason.
Van Wijnen said the shares in the three companies were sold in the third quarter of last year. He did not specify the exact timing or prices at which they were sold.
In second quarter of 2024 the pension fund held Alphabet shares worth about 3 billion euros ($3.15 billion) while its Meta holdings totalled 2 billion euros, FD said. Its Tesla holdings were valued at 597 million euros at the time.
Van Wijnen said the sales were not related to the election of Donald Trump as U.S. President and the support he received from the CEOs of those companies.
"We are agnostic when it comes to Trump," Van Wijnen told FD.
ABP, which holds 544 billion euros in total assets, last year said it would cut investments with a large climate impact, while directing more money to companies and projects that help to improve society and the environment.
The fund has sold its shares in large fossil fuel companies in recent years and spurned investments in tobacco and many arms producers.
($1 = 0.9535 euros)
(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by David Goodman)
