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Last week (7 July), PGGM announced an SRT transaction with UniCredit BulBank, the Bulgarian subsidiary of UniCredit Group, on a €2.1bn reference portfolio of corporate and SME loans — the largest SRT transaction in Bulgaria to date.

This investment into the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region is part of PGGM’s broader diversification effort, which has seen it increasingly working with smaller banks that are compatible with its robust investment criteria.

PGGM’s four recent transactions in CEE have been arranged or advised by UniCredit, emblematic of the investor’s relationship-based and bank analysis approach to the market.

Certain investors in SRT take more of a single credit analysis approach, while others focus on the bank’s credit underwriting practices.

Sitting firmly in the second group, PGGM stands out as one of the largest investors in the market, both in terms of ticket size and total SRT deployment, and for being one of the largest pension fund investors which is vocal about its investments in SRT, though it prefers the term Credit Risk Sharing and uses CRS throughout its reporting.

PGGM manages the portfolio of the PFZW Dutch pension fund and serves a few other clients which participate in two private real estate and infrastructure investment funds. PFZW has given PGGM an exclusive mandate to invest up to 3% of its assets in credit risk sharing, since 2006.

PGGM invests across asset classes, with alternatives strategies including infrastructure, private equity, private real estate, insurance-linked investments and SRT, and takes into account social and environmental impact.

Total assets under management (including public markets) were €261bn at the end of 2024, and total portfolio returns were 7.7%. The majority of its AuM comes from managing PFZW. Its SRT investment vertical had €6.7bn AuM and a 14.9% or €882m return for 2024.

PGGM is known for its longstanding experience in the market, uncompromising approach and distinct investment parameters. In a famously private market, PGGM is unusually candid in disclosing information about its investments.

“Sometimes people look at our overall approach as a bit uncommon and strange, but it's actually carefully designed to find value and diverse credit risk as long as it is originated in a certain way,” said Luca Paonessa, senior portfolio manager and senior director in credit risk sharing transactions at PGGM.