The Fund’s income return (ROE) came in at 4.4%, which was 0.1%-point lower than in 2014, mainly due to the investment properties under construction.

We expect a cautiously positive outlook for the Dutch economy, with healthy economic growth, falling unemployment and stable consumer confidence, to have a positive impact on the Dutch retail sector in the year ahead.

Bouwinvest believes it has a responsibility to make sure that its investments meet sustainability criteria and that we operate in a responsible and ethical manner.

Close cooperation with our tenants and other stakeholders is an important element of our sustainability strategy.

Monitoring environmental performance data (energy and water consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and waste) is an important part of managing sustainability issues.

Benchmarking based on the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) enables the Retail Fund to obtain more insight into the opportunities to improve the sustainability performance measured at fund level.

Bouwinvest Dutch Institutional Retail Fund N.V. (the Retail Fund) was established in 2010. Stichting Bedrijfstakpensioenfonds voor de Bouwnijverheid (bpfBOUW, the pension fund for the construction industry) is the Retail Fund’s anchor investor.

The Retail Fund is structured as an investment company with variable capital, as defined in article 2:76a of the Dutch Civil Code, with its corporate seat in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Bouwinvest has implemented a risk management framework based upon the principles of The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO).

Within the domain of the Retail Fund, we distinguish the following risk clusters: