Wednesday, July 18, 2018 Stamford, CT USA — The results of the Greenwich Associates 2018 Continental European Institutional Investors study reveal three prominent trends that are changing European investment portfolios:
- After nearly a decade of historically low interest rates and yields, institutional investors are adding specialty investment products to their portfolios in an effort to source the alpha they need to hit their return targets.
- Compliance with Solvency II and other European and country-specific regulations are at the very top of institutions’ priority lists in 2018, and these efforts are having a real impact on investment processes and portfolios.
- Institutional investors are responding to regulatory edicts and public pressure to integrate SRI factors into their investment decisions and portfolios. However, SRI is not gaining traction across Europe at a consistent pace.
“Together, these trends are fueling an unusually high rate of change in portfolios traditionally known for stability,” says Greenwich Associates Managing Director Markus Ohlig. “These shifts, in turn, are creating new opportunities for asset managers capable of providing plan sponsors with assistance in this period of change.”
2018 Greenwich Quality Leaders
The 2018 Greenwich Quality Leaders in Continental European Institutional Investment Management, Allianz Global Investors and PIMCO, are seizing these opportunities by helping institutions create and implement the solutions to the many dynamic issues impacting their investment strategies and operations.
Allianz Global Investors offers institutional investors one of the market’s broadest and most comprehensive platforms, which the firm employs to help plan sponsors with everything from the creation of portfolio-wide strategies and responses to regulations, to the implementation of specific products and strategies at the asset-class level. PIMCO, meanwhile, distinguishes itself among European institutions mainly on the basis of its strength in the specialty investment products to which investors across the region are turning in their search for yield.
Click here for the full Greenwich Report and list of 2018 Greenwich Quality Leaders in Continental European Institutional Investment Management.