A remarkably large part of the cabinet owns a second home, a substantial investment portfolio and is in good shape. This also applies to most MPs.
While the House was mainly concerned this week about improving purchasing power for the lowest incomes, a representative of that group is nowhere to be seen. The Dutch parliament mainly consists of highly educated people. MPs also earn a generous salary of about 120,000 euros a year (although the SP members pay a large part of that into the party coffers).
Financial interests
The newly appointed cabinet team is on average slightly warmer, according to the overview of financial and business interests that Prime Minister Rutte has sent to the House. In it he makes the financial interests of the new ministers public. At least thirteen of the 29 ministers appear to own two or more houses, or other real estate next to their own home. This concerns eleven (out of twenty) ministers and two state secretaries.
The second-home ownership among ministers is probably even greater, because Rutte does not name all cabinet members in his letter. Those who were already members of the Rutte III cabinet have already given up their possessions in 2017. At that time, the rules were less strict, so that less details are known about their investments. Of the restarting ministers, Rutte only mentions ministers Sigrid Kaag and Kajsa Ollongren.
Property
The new ministers had to report all their additional administrative positions before mid-January and then relinquish them. They must transfer the management of their investments, including second homes that are rented out, to an independent third party (not a relative). The standard way to arrange this is to place the investments in a foundation.
At first sight, Minister Henk Staghouwer of Agriculture seems to be the largest real estate owner. According to Rutte’s letter, the Groninger is the owner of ‘seven registered properties in the Netherlands’ that he rents out. A look at the land register makes it clear that all those registered properties are probably one large retail property in the center of Zuidhorn. Staghouwer rents out retail space to, among others, a thrift shop, a baker, a butcher and a key maker.
(Holiday) homes
There are more ministers who are active as real estate investors. Minister Karien van Gennip of Social Affairs lives in Oegstgeest, but also owns an apartment in the chic Apollobuurt in Amsterdam. That was offered for rent in March 2020 for 2,500 euros per month. Micky Adriaansens (Economic Affairs) has two Dutch homes for rent, as does Liesje Schreinemacher (Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation).
Sigrid Kaag (Finance) rents out her former home on Lake Geneva. Adriaansens also has a (holiday) home in Switzerland, but she does not rent it out. The other ministers who own one or more other houses next to their home are: Christianne van der Wal (two, in the Netherlands), Wopke Hoekstra and Hanke Bruins Slot (Netherlands), Marnix van Rij (Sint Eustatius), Kajsa Ollongren (Sweden), Dilan Yesilgöz and Gunay Uslu (Turkey).
Effects
A number of ministers also invest in securities. Depending on its composition, such an investment portfolio can yield a substantial return.
Karien van Gennip, former director of Private Banking and Investing at ING, seems to have an impressive portfolio of shares. She not only owns ING shares, but according to Rutte invests in ‘public investment funds with a wide spread (internationally) at banks in the Netherlands, France and the US’. In addition, from this year on, she will probably share in the return of her parents’ equity portfolio.
Other ministers with substantial securities holdings are Adriaansens (investment funds), Van Rij (shares in 43 companies), Kaag and Conny Helder, the Minister for Long-Term Care (shares in seventeen companies). Adriaansens has placed its securities in a foundation of which Ben Knüppe, the former bankruptcy trustee of DSB Bank, is a director.
Notable investments
In 2015, according to her own statement to the United Nations (her employer at the time), Sigrid Kaag owned shares in Facebook, Twitter and Chesapeake Energy, an American oil and gas company. A remarkable investment choice, given the climate ambitions of her party and D66’s harsh criticism of the power of the large technology companies.
She has probably sold these shares by now, because Rutte writes that she invests in international investment funds ‘with a wide diversification’.