Shareholder Spotlight : Aegon Asset Management UK Plc Part Two – The Diesel Bet Got Bigger, The Pension Mess Got Uglier

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Back in October 2025, TCAP put Aegon Asset Management UK Plc under the scalpel for its Cummins stake, its pension stink, its admin failures and its long corporate habit of standing near other people’s money while something unpleasant happens to it. Now they are back. Not because they learnt a lesson. Not because they backed away from Cummins. But because the filings show the diesel bet swelled again, even as Aegon’s own world kept serving up fresh evidence of pension chaos, complaints, system failures and institutional fuckery.

Previously On The Pension Sewage Channel

In Part One, TCAP covered Aegon Asset Management UK Plc’s stake in Cummins Inc., the diesel engine giant that agreed to a record Clean Air Act settlement over emissions defeat devices. At the time, Aegon’s reported Cummins holding was already ugly enough: a $71 million diesel bet sitting inside a wider machine with a history of pension disputes, admin failures, platform chaos, scam-transfer complaints and regulatory bruises.

That should have been the bit where a serious asset manager looked at the reputational swamp and thought: maybe we do not need to be quite so cosy with the company that got dragged into one of the largest environmental enforcement actions in US history.

Apparently not.

Because by the end of 2025, Aegon Asset Management UK Plc’s Cummins position had not faded into the background. It had swollen into a bigger, shinier, filthier heap.

The Cummins Stack Swelled

MarketBeat reported in April 2026 that Aegon Asset Management UK Plc had raised its Cummins holding by 11% during the fourth quarter, buying an additional 20,219 shares. That took the position to 203,604 Cummins shares, worth approximately $103.9 million at the end of the quarter.

Read that again.

Not $71 million.

Not some dusty little legacy position buried in the back of the cupboard.

A reported $103.9 million Cummins stack. A position big enough to sit as Aegon Asset Management UK Plc’s 16th largest holding according to that report. A diesel bet fat enough to need its own chair.

The later Q1 2026 SEC filing shows Aegon trimmed the position down to 175,387 shares, valued at approximately $93.6 million as of 31 March 2026. Fine. Let us be precise, because precision is what stops corporate gobshites hiding behind fog.

They bought more in Q4. They later trimmed. They still held a fucking enormous Cummins position.

So no, this is not a walk-away. This is not some clean ethical retreat. This is not a pension-house suddenly discovering lungs, children, air quality or the moral weight of holding a pollutant-linked industrial giant.

This is still tens of millions of dollars parked in Cummins.

The diesel cheque cleared. The conscience did not.

The Polluter In The Portfolio

Cummins is not some random industrial name TCAP picked because the logo looked lonely.

The US Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice announced a January 2024 settlement with Cummins over Clean Air Act violations linked to emissions software features. The government said Cummins equipped hundreds of thousands of Ram diesel vehicles with illegal software defeat devices and failed to disclose other emissions-related software features. The settlement included a $1.675 billion civil penalty, described by US authorities as the largest ever assessed in a Clean Air Act case, plus more than $325 million to remedy the violations.

Cummins denied wrongdoing. They always fucking do.

But the settlement exists. The penalty exists. The affected vehicles exist. The official enforcement record exists.

And Aegon Asset Management UK Plc still found room for Cummins in the portfolio. Not as a rounding error. Not as loose change. As a major equity position worth around $103.9 million at Q4 2025 and around $93.6 million at Q1 2026.

That is the point.

Aegon can publish all the polished guff it likes about stewardship, governance, responsibility and long-term outcomes. But when the portfolio says Cummins, the brochure starts to smell like warmed-over diesel and dead credibility.

While Pension Customers Were Being Fed The Usual Digital Porridge

And while Aegon was sitting on that Cummins stake, its own UK pension world was still coughing up more problems.

Aegon’s 2025 Independent Governance Committee summary report said the final four months of 2024 for Traditional Products were significantly impacted by the migration of the administration system. It said complaints for Traditional Products rose considerably after that migration. It said online services were unavailable for some members, statements were paused, and the call centre was unable to answer all calls for a period. It also downgraded its communication and member engagement assessment for Traditional Products to amber.

That is not TCAP being melodramatic.

That is Aegon’s own governance machinery saying the pension shed was wobbling.

And what is the product here? Retirement. Savings. Security. People’s future money. The stuff ordinary workers are told to trust the experts with while they get on with their lives, pay into the system, and hope the bastards at the other end can at least keep the lights on and the records straight.

Instead, some customers were left with unavailable online access, paused statements, unanswered calls and complaint numbers that even Aegon’s own IGC said needed bringing down.

Lovely stuff.

Your pension might be inaccessible, your statement might be paused, your call might not get answered, but do not worry. Somewhere in the filings, the Cummins position is doing laps round the ethics drain.

The Ombudsman Trail Got Fresh

The Financial Ombudsman Service decisions add more meat to the bone.

In one 2026 decision, Mr M complained that Scottish Equitable Plc, trading as Aegon, had failed to properly deduct and invest contributions to his pension. The decision said Aegon carried out a planned technology platform upgrade around August 2024, which unexpectedly led to issues including pension contributions failing to be correctly applied to accounts, limited or no online access, and increased call waiting times.

Mr M made a £60,000 contribution in November 2024. Aegon received it, but it did not initially appear correctly online. Later, when it did show, it was recorded as made in January 2025. Regular monthly contributions also went wrong. The ombudsman upheld the complaint, found Aegon had made errors, and required it to backdate contributions and pay compensation.

That is not a tiny admin burp.

That is pension money going into the system and the system behaving like a drunk spreadsheet in a locked filing cabinet.

In another decision, Mr W complained about being unable to reliably access information about his pension savings from September 2024. Aegon’s own final response letters apologised and said the problems were caused by issues from a system upgrade. The ombudsman did not uphold that particular complaint because online access was not contractually required, but the decision still records the broader reality: intermittent or unavailable online access for some customers, incorrect data being shown, busy phone lines and extended wait times.

So there is the pattern again.

Not one squeaky hinge. A whole fucking door falling off.

One Million Customers And A Long Hangover

GB News reported in January 2026 that Scottish Equitable, operating under the Aegon brand, attempted to migrate around one million legacy pension customers onto new systems in August 2024, triggering widespread disruption for a significant portion of savers. It reported blocked accounts, missing employer contributions and Ombudsman rulings against the provider in at least five workplace pension disputes in the previous six months, with £2,200 in combined compensation ordered.

Aegon reportedly declined to confirm how many customers were affected, while serving around two million pension savers in total.

That is exactly the sort of corporate fog TCAP loves.

A huge migration. Customers disrupted. Contributions missing. People locked out. Ombudsman decisions. Compensation. And then the classic institutional manoeuvre: talk in circles, admit only what cannot be avoided, and keep the exact scale tucked somewhere behind the curtain with the other embarrassing laundry.

This is why the Cummins position matters.

Because Aegon is not some abstract spreadsheet creature. This is a business built around trust. It handles retirement money. It asks people to believe in long-term stewardship. It sells safety, governance, judgement and control.

Then its pension systems shit the bed and its asset management arm still holds tens of millions in Cummins.

There is your judgement.

There is your stewardship.

There is your fucking control.

The Harbour Workers Still Haunt The Room

And then there is Optas.

Part One already covered the long-running Dutch harbour workers’ pension dispute. Since then, the issue has kept breathing.

In May 2025, NL Times reported on a continuing legal battle involving Dutch harbour workers, Optas pension reserves and Aegon. The report described a €2.5 billion dispute, involving funds originally intended for around 40,000 harbour workers, and said legal action was continuing over whether reserves should be returned to workers.

The same month, Dutch MPs Pieter Omtzigt and Agnes Joseph submitted written parliamentary questions about the Optas harbour pension fund and Aegon. The title alone does half the work: a continuing legal battle in which billions in pension money allegedly ended up in the wrong pockets. One question asked how much harbour workers’ pension money had ultimately lost its pension destination and was now money for good causes or profit.

That is not a minor footnote.

That is a pension ghost story with parliamentary stationery.

Aegon can try to dress it up in process, transaction history and legal structure. Fine. They can bring a fucking flowchart if they want. The public-interest point remains simple enough for anyone not paid to miss it: workers thought pension money was for pensions, and years later politicians were still asking how much of it ended up somewhere else.

The SEC Ghost Still Had A Tail

Across the Atlantic, the old Transamerica/Aegon investment-model mess has not vanished either.

In 2024, the SEC issued an order relating to the Fair Fund from the 2018 proceedings against Aegon USA Investment Management LLC and Transamerica entities. The SEC recorded that the Aegon respondents had been found to have violated federal securities laws between July 2011 and June 2015 while offering, selling and managing quantitative-model-based investment products and strategies.

The total ordered payments were $97.6 million, including disgorgement, interest and civil penalties. The SEC’s 2024 order also recorded that over $93 million had been successfully disbursed to harmed investors, with remaining funds to be transferred to the US Treasury.

Again, this is not some anti-corporate fever dream.

This is the regulator’s paper trail.

Faulty models. Misled investors. Tens of millions. Fair Fund. Harmed investors. Years of cleanup.

But sure, tell us more about expertise.

Aegon’s Favourite Trick: Clean Language Over Dirty Outcomes

This is the recurring Aegon trick.

Everything sounds sterile until you translate it into human terms.

“System migration” means savers locked out, statements paused, data wrong, contributions not properly applied and call centres drowning.

“Complaint handling” means pension customers wasting months trying to find out where their money went.

“Investment stewardship” means holding tens of millions in Cummins after a record Clean Air Act settlement.

“Historical pension dispute” means harbour workers still fighting over money they say should have protected their retirements.

“Quantitative investment model issues” means investors had to be compensated after the regulator found violations.

That is the real dictionary.

Corporate language is bleach. TCAP is here to smell what they are bleachi

The Bigger The Holding, The Worse The Excuse

Aegon’s Cummins position is not morally neutral just because a portfolio manager can explain it in a spreadsheet.

Money is endorsement with a suit on.

When Aegon Asset Management UK Plc held more than 203,000 Cummins shares at Q4 2025, worth around $103.9 million, that was not an accident. When its next filing still showed 175,387 shares worth around $93.6 million, that was not a clean break. That was a continuing position.

Aegon did not need to increase the stake in Q4.

It did.

Aegon did not need to remain exposed in Q1.

It did.

So spare us the responsible-investment lullaby. Spare us the stakeholder guff. Spare us the polished PDF paragraphs about governance, customer outcomes and long-term thinking.

Because the filings say Cummins.

The enforcement record says defeat devices.

The pension reports say migration disruption.

The Ombudsman decisions say contribution errors, online access failures, delays and compensation.

The Dutch material says Optas is still a live pension sore.

The SEC record says Aegon-linked investment misconduct had a $97.6 million tail.

At some point, this stops looking like bad luck and starts looking like a corporate habit: money first, people somewhere after the disclaimer.

The Same Old Shit, With A Bigger Number

Part One asked why Aegon was comfortable holding a large Cummins stake while dragging its own baggage behind it.

Part Two answers that question.

Because comfort is the business model.

Comfort with pensioners waiting. Comfort with complaints rising. Comfort with system migrations going sideways. Comfort with old disputes lingering. Comfort with harmed investors needing a Fair Fund. Comfort with a Cummins position fat enough to make the first article look almost modest.

This is not a company accidentally splashing through a puddle.

This is a company standing in the drain and calling it asset allocation.

And Cummins? Cummins gets another institutional investor helping keep the market warm after the emissions scandal. Another respectable name in the shareholder stack. Another suit in the room pretending the diesel stink stops at the factory gate.

It does not.

The money trail keeps breathing.

The filings keep talking.

And TCAP keeps reading the fucking paperwork.

Sources

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