Seventeen of the Netherlands’ biggest pension funds will have to cut pay-outs by an average 5.9% in 2013, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday.

The paper bases its claims on its own research. The 17 funds manage 65% of the total Dutch pension pool, the paper says.
The funds will be forced to make cuts because they have not managed to get their assets in order by the end of this year. The paper looked at the financial position of the 50 biggest Dutch pension funds.
The paper does not name the funds on its website, but does say the five biggest funds – civil service fund ABP, healthcare fund Zorg en Welzijn, engineering funds PME and PMT and the construction sector fund – are in a worse position. They will have to make an average pension cut of 7.9%, the paper says.