Remmert Koekkoek is Head of the Sustainable Multi Asset Solutions. In this role he focuses on the management of balance sheet solutions and buy and maintain portfolios for pension funds and insurance companies. He has worked at Robeco since 2011. Prior to joining Robeco, he was part of the insurance and pension solutions group of Credit Suisse in the period 2010-2011, where he was responsible for providing hedging and investment solutions to Dutch pension funds and insurance companies. Between 2005 and 2010 Remmert worked at Robeco's as structurer in the Structured Investment team. He started his career in the industry in 2004 at ING Risk Management. Remmert holds a Master's (cum laude) in Econometrics from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Yvo Schoemaker is Portfolio Manager Insurance & Pension Solutions in the Sustainable Multi Asset Solutions team. He manages and develops fully customized client driven solutions across asset classes tailored to specific financial and sustainable objectives. Solutions range from LDI/CDI, Fixed Maturity Products, Buy and Maintain to Multi Asset. In 2006 he moved to the Structured Investments department where he was responsible for trading linear and non-linear exposures on the balance sheet of Robeco and subsequently development of structured investments. Yvo started his career in 2005 at Robeco Quantitative Strategies. Yvo holds a Master’s in Computational Finance from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

The fund is established in Luxembourg and is subject to the Luxembourg tax laws and regulations. The fund is not liable to pay any corporation, income, dividend or capital gains tax in Luxembourg. The fund is subject to an annual subscription tax ('tax d'abonnement') in Luxembourg, which amounts to 0,00% of the net asset value of the fund. This tax is included in the net asset value of the fund. The fund can in principle use the Luxembourg treaty network to partially recover any withholding tax on its income.

Professional investors are divided into pension funds and non-pension funds. Dutch pension funds may re-claim the 25% dividend tax deducted on cash dividends entirely. Dutch non-pension funds may deduct the 25% dividend tax deducted on cash dividends in their corporate income tax assessment. Dividend tax in that case is tax deducted at source. No tax is deducted at source on interest income. Thus, Dutch pension funds do not owe taxes on interest income. Dutch non-pension funds should specify interest income in their corporate income tax assessment.

The fund incorporates sustainability in its investment process by the means of exclusions, ESG integration and targets for the ESG scores and a minimum allocation to ESG-labeled bonds. The fund integrates ESG factors of countries in the investment process based on Robeco's proprietary Country Sustainability Ranking and ensure the fund has at least an average score of 7. The Corporate Sustainability Ranking scores countries on a scale from 1 (worst) to 10 (best) based on 40 environmental, social, and governance indicators. Besides incorporating the Country Sustainability Ranking, the fund adheres to Robeco's exclusion policy and avoids investments in high sustainability risk names. Lastly, the fund invests a minimum of 5% in green, social, sustainable, and/or sustainability-linked bonds.

Government bond markets returns were positive over April, with high volatility during the month. The US 10-year yield closed between 3.99% and 4.49% over April. Additionally, the curve steepened significantly. The German Bund yield curve also steepened but to a lesser extent. The yield on the 10-year maturity Bund declined by 29 basis points over the month to 2.44%. During the month, US President Trump announced sweeping global tariff measures, leading to a significant risk-off in financial markets. A week later, a 90-day pause was imposed and a more limited 10% global tariff rate on goods imports was applied. Tariff uncertainty boosted US imports in Q1 and the first estimate of US Q1 GDP came in weaker than expected at -0.3% annualized, while in Europe, growth surprised somewhat to the upside at 1.4%. The ECB reduced its deposit rate by 25 basis points to 2.25% and ECB President Lagarde sounded dovish at the press conference. Italy received a rating upgrade to BBB+ from S&P.

Based on closing GAV, the fund's return was 3.63%. The fund posted a positive return over the month.

US tariff announcements have surprised markets. Even with a more limited rate of 10%, the effective tariff rate is still many multiples higher than in the previous decades. The safe-haven status of US Treasuries has been affected, as government bond yields on longer maturities started to rise as the risk-off move progressed, while Bunds continued to act as a safe-haven asset. Current uncertainties could lead to more cohesion within Europe. To a certain degree, this is already reflected in periphery bond spreads to Germany. These remained relatively tight compared to other spread markets, such as corporate bonds, in the risk-off move. The focus on tariffs has caused markets to ignore the higher upcoming issuance plans in Europe, at least temporarily. We expect these supply dynamics to come back in focus and continue to expect steeper curves. We remain cautious with regard to France, as political tensions are bound to return, especially around next year's budget negotiations set for later this year. We remain more constructive on Spanish and Greek government bonds.