Dutch Pension Drops Goldman, Citing Falling Performance

(April 27, 2010) — Dutch transport pension fund Pensioenfonds Vervoer said it has dropped Goldman Sachs as the fund’s fiduciary manager, responsible for picking underlying asset managers.

The $11.9 billion national transport workers’ fund has replaced Goldman Sachs Asset Management with Northern Trust to run the fiduciary mandate GSAM held since 2006. “This evaluation shows that the fiduciary management by GSAMI and the results realised therefrom, have not met the expectations of the Board,” the fund said in a statement posted on its website.

The Dutch fund’s chief executive Walter Brand said the scheme had been evaluating the asset manager’s performance before Christmas, since it had not managed to outperform its agreed benchmark for more than four years. The fund represents employers and employees in the goods transport, private bus, taxi, mobile crane and inland ferry sectors.

“It is just coincidence that this announcement was made as the company’s parent, Goldman Sachs – which is totally separate to our arrangement – has been involved with the SEC investigations – our decision was made to evaluate their performance months ago,” said Brand to Financial News.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s fraud charges against Goldman, which claim the bank concealed vital information, come at the heals of a push by the Obama administration and Senate Democrats for a financial regulation bill.