NETHERLANDS - TKP Pensioen has revealed the financial crisis has brought the performance growth of its real estate investments to a standstill.

The Dutch pension fund with approximately 230,000 participants currently invests in two fund-of-funds on behalf of pension fund clients - one invested in Europe and one in Asia - both of which have delivered positive year-to-date returns of 3.4% and 13.7% respectively.

The pension fund's investments in listed real estate, however, have delivered negative year-to-date returns, though officials were unwilling to declare exactly how much that negative return was.

"The growth has come to an end or has been negative," said Robert-Jan Tel, head of real estate at TKP Investments - the body managing TKP's investments.

"We have seen the latter in our UK investments and in Spain, but not in the rest of Continental Europe or Asia yet. As valuations are lagging and uncertain at the moment, we expect current valuations will be under pressure, but it's not clear how much," he continued.

More importantly, the pension fund's investment team expect values to fall slightly over the coming months.

"At the beginning of the year we saw appraisals increase in value, especially in China. But times have changed, " said Tel.

"There have not been many transactions in the last month. Most people expect some decrease in the months and year ahead," he continued.

Despite the impact on its real estate strategy, TKP does not plan on changing its real estate investment strategy any time soon.

TKP Pensioen also administers, among others, Pensioenfonds GE, UWV and IBM Nederland.

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