Europe’s biggest pension fund just voted with its wallet. ABP, the Dutch civil servants’ pension giant managing roughly €531 billion in assets, pulled nearly €25 billion out of US investments between late 2025 and March 2026, redirecting that capital into European government bonds and equities.
The result: European assets now make up 37.2% of ABP’s portfolio, or about €198 billion, compared to 32.2% in US holdings at roughly €171 billion.
The numbers tell a dramatic story
The most striking move was in US government bonds. ABP slashed its Treasury holdings from €19 billion to just €4.6 billion, a reduction of roughly 75%.
On the equity side, the fund trimmed about €10 billion from its US stock portfolio, bringing it down to €101.8 billion as of March 2026. The casualties included positions in some of the most recognizable names in global tech: Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple all saw divestments from ABP’s books.
Where did all that capital go? Mostly into eurozone sovereign debt. ABP now holds approximately €40 billion in German government bonds alone, with about €6 billion of its former US bond allocation redirected specifically into German bunds. France, the Netherlands, and Belgium also picked up significant inflows.
Earlier in 2025, ABP had already cut its US Treasury stake by €10 billion, meaning the total withdrawal from American fixed income has been even larger than the headline figure suggests.
Why ABP is betting on Europe
Two forces are driving this reallocation. The first is the Netherlands’ pension system reform, a sweeping regulatory overhaul designed to enhance stability for retirees. The new framework favors euro-denominated investments because they reduce currency risk for a fund that ultimately pays out in euros.
The second factor is a broader reassessment of relative value between US and European assets. ABP’s investment team apparently concluded that eurozone government bonds now offer a more attractive risk-reward profile than their American counterparts, with German bunds becoming the primary destination.
What this means for markets
ABP’s decision to trim positions in Nvidia, Microsoft, and Apple signals that even the most dominant names in global markets aren’t immune to portfolio-level strategic shifts. These were structural rebalancing decisions, which means the selling pressure isn’t contingent on earnings beats or misses.
For US Treasuries, ABP’s drawdown represents exactly the kind of foreign institutional selling that Treasury officials worry about. In the European government bond market, increased demand for German, French, Dutch, and Belgian sovereign debt could compress yields further, making borrowing cheaper for those governments.