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.

June was characterized by significant geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East and the approaching July 9th deadline of country-specific tariffs. Nonetheless, government bond market returns were slightly negative in Europe, although differences were visible per country. An example are 10-year German Bund yields, which rose about 10 bps from 2.50% to 2.60%, while the 10-year Italian BTP yield remained unchanged, as BTP spreads quickly shrugged off every market uncertainty. The ECB governing council decided to reduce interest rates by 25 bps in June, bringing the deposit facility rate to 2.0%. Even as ECB staff projections showed a lower outlook for inflation and growth, the message at the press conference was more hawkish than expected. In the US, as expected, the Fed left the target range for the Fed funds rate unchanged for the 4th time in a row. Renewed forecasts showed a higher inflation and slower GDP growth for 2025, confirming that import tariff assumptions have now been formally incorporated in the projections.

Based on closing GAV, the fund's return was -1.13%. The fund posted a small negative return over the month. We are of the opinion that the impact on supply due to fiscal spending will continue to put steepening pressure on the curve in coming years, and will use significant flattening to increase curve positions. SSA spreads versus the underlying government bond curve tightened over the month, due to the favorable risk climate. Supply in high-rated labelled bonds has been limited, also supporting secondary spreads.

The ECB seems close to pausing its easing cycle, while the Fed is still holding off on cuts. We think that weakening US labor data this summer could push the Fed to cut in September. Front-end euro rates bottomed mid-April and have been moving sideways since. The recent steepening in German and euro curves has been driven by the long end, and we expect that to continue. More net issuance and possibly less long-end demand from Dutch pension funds could keep pressure on the back end. So, we still like steepeners further out the curve. Peripheral markets had another strong month in June, with spreads tightening further versus Bunds. Spain continues to trade through France, backed by improving fundamentals. Greek spreads are also closing in on French OAT levels. If no major shocks hit, we see more compression ahead and possibly new post-2012 euro crisis lows in spreads (France excluded).