Dutch investors are maintaining a balanced approach to any investment over the recent months. Many are keen to get back into the various opportunities that present themselves, but volatility and risk aversion keeps them from changing their current allocations dramatically. At the end of March 2011, total assets in Dutch insurers and pension funds was…
Danish investors continue to invest, however, following strong inflows into most asset classes during 2010, they expect 2011 to be more challenging. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic don’t seem to be able to get the sovereign debt crisis fully under control, casting doubts over bond investments. In addition investors have mentioned paying more…
Portuguese investors are very suspicious of the looming bailout from the European Union. Some of our interviewees were confident about the fact that Portugal can handle the continuous downgrading from ratings agencies. However, others expressed their concern and that further intervention is unavoidable, despite the several measures taken by the government during the last months.…
Swedish investors are broadly speaking confident about international investment markets. Although doubts remain over the eurozone, in particular the PIIGS countries, expectations for traditional asset classes are strong. During 2010, equity, balanced and bond funds enjoyed inflows of nearly SEK107bn. The ongoing strength of the Swedish kronor has led investors to place assets in domestic…
Italian investors have regained confidence in the global upturn. Although they are not committing fully to the positive trends, they believe that a strong 2010 will also lead to opportunities in 2011. Following the need for reforms across Europe and stability within each member state of the EU, investors have expressed a sense of urgency…
Fund flows have been consistently up for the past two months, with both December and January seeing net inflows of more than €6bn, according to BVI, the German fund industry trade body. However, despite this, it is still a slower recovery than this time last year, which in January saw a €13.5bn inflow. In the…
Belgian private banks and pensions are naturally risk-averse, a situation which of course became exacerbated in 2008 and 2009. They are now creeping back into risk assets on the back of general confidence in the recovery. Interviewees were generally positive about using global investors with asset allocation abilities rather than narrowly focused investment experts in…
The Norwegian investment fund industry is on track to post more inflows from institutional investors than ever before. After the crisis in 2008 led to outflows of nearly NOK13bn (€1.6bn), investors have now regained confidence and in the first 3 quarters of 2010 invested more than NOK48.5bn (€6.1bn) (see top graph). Another trend is that…
This attitude to risk explains why a significant majority of investors we spoke to are seeking active managers, with some using up to 90% active managers. However, as the industry is recovering, other investors are also getting back to their favoured investment style: long-only, traditional and conservative, but opportunistic. Exchange Traded Funds are a recognized…
This attitude to risk explains why a significant majority of investors we spoke to are seeking active managers, with some using up to 90% active managers. However, as the industry is recovering, other investors are also getting back to their favoured investment style: long-only, traditional and conservative, but opportunistic. Exchange Traded Funds are a recognized…
true Danish funds have seen significant inflows into foreign equity funds; most increases are in Latin America and Emerging Markets funds (as well as Far East ex-Japan). Apart from European bonds, a similar development can be seen for fixed income investments. Danish asset managers benefit from investors’ trust in local expertise and one can notice…
