Investing on behalf of our clients: Telling our story

Capital at risk

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Hi, I’m Monique Donders, and I have been leading the Dutch BlackRock business for almost ten years.

We have been operating in the Netherlands for more than 25 years. While we work for banks, insurers, advisors and individual investors, the vast majority of what we do is for Dutch pension funds. Millions of Dutch scheme participants invest for retirement with us through their pension funds – so they can enjoy a well-deserved retirement when it comes.

Recently, there has been some discussion about BlackRock and our approach to sustainable investing. I would like to use this moment to explain about our role as an asset manager and above all our responsibilities to our clients.

CARD: Our role as an asset manager

As an asset manager the money we manage is not our own. It belongs to the individuals and organizations around the world who rely on BlackRock to help them reach their long-term financial goals.

We work to stay ahead of our clients’ needs by providing them with a broad set of choices so that they can decide what investment strategy best aligns with their own financial objectives.

The choice of where to invest ultimately rests with our clients, and we manage their money at their direction. That’s part of being an asset manager.

CARD: We are a fiduciary

As a fiduciary, we have an obligation to act in the best interests of our clients and to be solely focused on their investment objectives. Our clients’ interests come first. Always.

CARD: Helping our clients to reach their long-term investment objectives

What we do for our clients is to make investing more accessible, transparent, and affordable, supported by insights from the BlackRock Investment Institute and by our powerful data and analytics capabilities.

For us, being a fiduciary means more than managing investments. It means being a trusted partner. For example, we also support clients as they prepare for the Dutch pension transition — the largest and one of the most complex operational shifts in Dutch financial history.

CARD: Our approach to sustainable & transition investing

One of BlackRock’s investment convictions is that the energy transition is a mega force shaping economies and markets.

In the 20 years since we launched our first sustainable investment strategy, this platform includes over 500 investment solutions globally and has grown to almost €1 trillion in assets under management, driven by clients who continue to see us as their partner of choice for sustainable investing across a range of asset classes and styles.8

We continue to innovate and invest in our Sustainable & Transition investing platform to help our clients meet their objectives.

CARD: Investment stewardship

Central to our fiduciary duty as an asset manager is investment stewardship, which includes engaging with the companies our clients are invested in and voting at shareholder meetings. In all cases, our stewardship teams make voting decisions consistent with our clients’ stated objectives.

To be clear, we do not direct a company’s strategy or implementation. That responsibility lies with company boards and management teams.

Our role is to evaluate whether companies are managing material risks and opportunities - including climate and natural capital - in ways that support long-term financial performance.

When investing through BlackRock, eligible clients can choose to vote their shares directly or authorize us to vote on their behalf. Many Dutch pension funds manage their own engagement and voting. For those that delegate to us, the vast majority choose to follow our stewardship policies. These policies are transparent, updated regularly, and are focused on advancing our clients’ financial interests.

We also offer a wide range of voting options through our Voting Choice program.

CARD: The bottom line

At BlackRock, performance and the choice of our clients — not special interest groups or other third parties — drives everything we do. The money we manage doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to our clients.

Our responsibility is to protect and grow that money, and we have done so as a fiduciary since our founding in 1988. That commitment remains the bedrock of who we are — in the Netherlands and around the world.

Hear from Monique Donders, Country Manager BlackRock Netherlands

As she shares more about our story and how we invest on behalf of our clients.

For more than 25 years, BlackRock has proudly been serving clients in the Netherlands. We opened our first office in Amsterdam in 1998, and today we combine our deep understanding of the Dutch market with global insights to help clients across the Netherlands build more secure financial futures.

We work with a cross-section of Dutch clients – banks, insurers, advisors, individual investors1 – but the majority of our work is with Dutch pension funds. We are proud to help more than six million people in the country — more than half of the working-age population — invest for retirement through these pension funds.2

At BlackRock, we are focused on helping our pension clients grow their investments so that participants can retire with peace of mind. Pension contributions aren’t just saved; they are invested. Because these contributions are invested over many years, the value of these savings often doubles or even triples by the time participants retire.3 This makes investing a key driver of pension growth, helping to secure a stable income for retirees.

While we have deep local roots in the Netherlands, we are also a global firm and we seek to bring the power of BlackRock to help more people retire with dignity. This means reducing barriers to investing, increasing accessibility and reducing complexity.

Here, we are telling our story to be clear about our role as an asset manager, our responsibilities to our clients and our approach to sustainable investing.

Our role as an asset manager

Fiduciary duty is a foundational principle at BlackRock. It means that, as an asset manager, we have an obligation to act in the best interests of our clients and to focus solely on their investment objectives.

We work to stay ahead of our clients’ needs by providing them with a broad set of choices so that they can decide what investment strategy best aligns with their own financial objectives. For example, if our clients want to invest in infrastructure or align to specific sustainability themes, we offer them the products and strategies to meet those needs.

Our role is to provide our clients with choice. As our CEO Larry Fink wrote in his 2024 Chairman’s Letter to Investors, if our clients choose to invest in sustainable and transition products, we offer them more than 500 such solutions4. If they decide to invest in fossil fuels in their portfolios, they have the opportunity to do so.

This is central to our role as an asset manager: we follow our clients’ mandates, and we manage their money at their direction.

Our approach to sustainable and transition investing

One of BlackRock’s investment convictions is that the energy transition is a mega force shaping economies. To meet this moment, we’ve built the industry’s largest sustainable and transition platform5, underpinned by our sophisticated research and analytics teams and proprietary Aladdin® Climate technology.6

In the 20 years since we launched our first sustainable investment strategy, the platform has grown to almost €1 trillion in assets under management (AUM) driven by clients – in the Netherlands and around the world - who continue to see us as their partner of choice.7

One of the strengths of this platform is the depth and breadth of our product offerings. We know that investors have a range of investment objectives, and we do our best to match our products with our clients' objectives. For example, some of our clients, including many of our largest European clients, are pursuing decarbonization as an investment objective or have made net zero commitments8. To support these objectives, we offer more than 100 funds globally with specific decarbonization goals.

We continue to innovate and invest in our sustainable and transition investing platform to help our clients meet their objectives. Read more about our sustainable and transition investing platform here.

Investment Stewardship and choice

Central to our fiduciary duty as an asset manager is investment stewardship, which includes engaging with the companies our clients are invested in and voting at shareholder meetings. Our stewardship activities are grounded in the issues we consider likely to impact a company’s ability to deliver financial returns for our clients. Alongside engagement priorities like board quality and financial resilience, we take into account the economic risks and opportunities associated with a transition to a low-carbon economy, including climate-related risks and the use of natural capital.

In all cases, our stewardship teams engage and make voting decisions consistent with our clients’ stated objectives.

Importantly, this means that one client’s views and objectives cannot dictate another’s, and neither can external voices or interest groups.

We recognize that not all of our clients have the same set of objectives, and we complement our diversity of product offering with a range of stewardship options. For clients who participate or invest in funds with specific decarbonization objectives, we have a Climate and Decarbonization Stewardship Program at BlackRock. This Program considers not only financial objectives but also a company’s strategy to align with a transition to a low-carbon economy when conducting its activities.

The majority of our clients authorize BlackRock to vote on their behalf at shareholder meetings, however we offer several options for clients who wish to vote their shares directly. For example, many Dutch pension funds that are clients of BlackRock have their own sophisticated stewardship teams. These teams have the flexibility to build their own voting policies, engage with companies directly and vote on behalf of their participants, in line with their stated preferences. We continue to expand our industry-leading Voting Choice program, which gives eligible clients a broad range of options for directly expressing their views through proxy voting.

Our investment stewardship teams’ approach is clear, transparent and publicly available. Read more here.

The bottom line

We are proud of the trust our Dutch clients place in us to manage their money, and we are unwavering in our commitment to them. While others may try to dictate how our clients’ money is managed, our fiduciary duty anchors our approach.

After all, the money we manage doesn’t belong to BlackRock or outside groups; it belongs to our clients, and our responsibility is to them.

Monique Donders,
Country Manager
BlackRock Netherlands

1 Through its range of funds, BlackRock provides individual investors with access to investment solutions
2 Source: Based on annual reports from Dutch pension funds for 2022
3 Het (ver)delen van beleggingsresultaten en risico’s | Contractkeuze | Werken aan ons Pensioen
4 BlackRock as of December 2024. This includes some transition-focused strategies that also meet our Sustainable Investing Platform criteria (Screened, Uplift, Thematic, and Impact strategies using environmental, social and/or governance data as a portfolio construction input and a subset also seek to achieve long-term sustainability outcomes in line with each specific investment objective).
5 BlackRock, as of September 30, 2025, based on AUM utilizing available market data from Morningstar, Broadridge, Bloomberg, and Simfund covering assets defined to have a sustainability focus. Includes open-ended funds, money market funds, ETFs, and institutional separate accounts. Does not include any private markets assets or closed-end funds.
6 BlackRock’s Approach to Sustainable and Transition Investing
7 BlackRock’s Approach to Sustainable and Transition Investing
8 Includes a select group of our largest client relationships; net zero commitments are sourced from the GFANZ website and respective company websites, as of January 2025