Eight of the fifteen most read Investment Officer Netherlands articles in 2025 focus on developments at, and the ambitions of, the major Dutch private banks: ABN Amro MeesPierson, Rabobank, Van Lanschot Kempen, ING and InsingerGilissen.
The three interviews with leading figures from the Dutch private banking sector—Choy van der Hooft-Cheong, Anneka Treon and Sybelle Gielisse—all made it into the top 10. That list also includes the story about Katja Kok’s departure from ING and a second article on the new direction ABN Amro is taking in wealth management. Add to that the traditional semiannual articles on the returns private banks achieve with their model portfolios, plus a story about a new discretionary mandate at ABN Amro, and the dominance of private banking in our top 15 most read articles becomes clear.
But the world is bigger. Starting with wealth management, because alongside the private banks the sector includes more than one hundred independent asset managers, and they are anything but idle. The interview Justin Doornekamp conducted with two VV&A board members about the wave of consolidation in the sector attracted a great deal of interest, as evidenced by its place in the top 10.
Meanwhile, the “really very big” world was defined by the first turbulent year of Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States, and that too is reflected in this annual ranking. Raymond Frenken and Max Severijns, our correspondent in New York, wrote numerous news stories and analyses during the hectic days around March and April, and also afterward, all of which were widely read. Two of them ended up in our top 15.
How turbulent 2025 was may also be illustrated by the numbers 1 and 2 on this list, articles about gold and about emigration. Put bluntly, those topics fall under the theme of “packing up and leaving.” The investment category gold—historically the safe haven par excellence, a beacon in uncertain times—flourished last year as never before, and our background story on the supply side of this precious metal unexpectedly turned out to have genuine clickbait qualities.
The fact that wealthy individuals are not only “fleeing” into gold, but may also want to “flee” abroad, can hardly be interpreted as a sign of calm, confidence and certainty. For now, hard data on the number of people who actually leave is lacking, but the core message of our article—the topic is once again firmly on the agenda—was recognized en masse by our readers.
Top 15 most read articles 2025 Investment Officer Netherlands:
- Als het goud opraakt
- Emigratie weer op de agenda bij zeer vermogenden
- ABN Amro slaat nieuwe weg in met vermogensbeheer — English translation
- Katja Kok verlaat ING: gelukkig zijn is voor mij het belangrijkste’
- ABN Amro verhoogt instapdrempel voor private banking naar 1 miljoen
- Wall Street verliest geduld met Trump
- Rabobank richt assetmanager op, biedt bitcoin-tracker aan
- ING zet in op verdubbeling wealth — English translation
- Consolidatie: niet-groeiende vermogensbeheerders zijn aangeschoten wild
- Modelportefeuilles banken: een zwaar jaar voor actief beheer
- Moonfare wil secundaire markt voor Eltifs 2.0 lanceren
- Modelportefeuilles: hoe minder in Noord-Amerika, hoe beter
- Trumps handelsoorlog verdeelt zijn eigen kamp
- Groeten uit New York: Ruulke Bagijn leidt Carlyle Alpinvest
- Actief en passief gaan samen in ‘nieuw’ mandaat van ABN Amro