During the finalisation of this annual report, the world was overtaken by a serious crisis due to the COVID-19 virus.

Bouwinvest is the fund manager of the Fund and as such is responsible for portfolio management and risk management.

Bouwinvest constantly aims to strengthen the risk management function within the organisation.

Bouwinvest has organised Risk Management according to the three lines of defence model. The roles and high-level risk responsibilities are described for each of the lines.

To achieve an integrated approach to risk management, all the risks Bouwinvest is exposed to must be uniformly defined. To this end, Bouwinvest drew up a Risk Taxonomy that has been approved by the Executive Board of Directors.

Bouwinvest sees integrity, transparency and corporate social responsibility and important prerequisites to achieving its business objectives.

Based on our assessment of the dynamics, opportunities and threats of the Dutch retail market over 2019, we arrived at following vision of the Dutch retail market:

The Dutch economy continued to perform well in 2019, although momentum did weaken during the course of the year. Real GDP growth amounted to 1.7% in 2019, which makes the Netherlands one of the most flourishing economies in Western Europe.

The most significant policy issue during 2019 in the Netherlands was related to zoning plans, which have always been highly prescriptive and determine the extent to which each sector may or may not do business in a certain area.

Before 2050, all retail buildings will have to be made sustainable one way or another to convert them to low (or even net-zero) carbon emissions.