The private equity investments of PGGM, the Dutch healthcare and social service pension fund, were the pension fund's only asset class to post negative returns in the first half of 2003.

Private equity posted negative returns of -0.4% in the second quarter and -1% for the first half of the year. Recent data on private equity and venture capital from Thomson Venture Economics found the asset class as whole returned -9.2% in 2002, but 10.1% over a five-year period.