Goldman Sachs Asset Management is targeting Italy as its biggest growth opportunity for its Luxembourg SICAV, five years after kick-starting a strategy to work with the mutual fund distributors at a local level.
European pension funds have increased their allocation to mutual funds from 19% in 2008 to 31% in 2014, according to a research report by PwC which was commissioned by the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (Alfi).
The concerted efforts of Japan’s bold Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the country’s central bank to revive the country’s ailing economy have left European investors unimpressed over the past years, as gains in Japanese shares resulting from Abenomics policies were largely offset by currency depreciation. As a consequence, most European fund buyers have consistently kept…
Emerging market debt and high yield bonds, which have had some pretty high inflow volatility recently, are now firmly back in favour with European investors. By contrast, net inflows into investment grade bonds are slowing down.
Barry Norris, the European equity manager and co-founder of London-based investment boutique Argonaut, is one of the most outspoken proponents of a Grexit. The refusal of the current ‘communist’ Greek government to commit to reforms means the country’s economy could never be able to stand on its own feet if it stays in the eurozone,…
There are three certainties about Italians: they eat pasta, they revere their mothers, and they invest in bonds. As Italian government debt of roughly €2.7trn is the highest in Europe in nominal terms, there is no shortage of the last of these.
Some 57% of delegates at Expert Investor Bilbao last week said they will step up their allocation to convertibles, while none are planning to decrease it. This strong appetite for convertible bonds stands in sharp contrast with other fixed income. Some 56% of fund buyers in the Basque country plan to decrease their exposure to…
When we asked a crowd of Belgian fund selectors back in January about the possibility of a Greek exit from the euro, only 13% deemed that likely to happen. At our Pan-European Congress in Rome last month, the share of Grexit-believers had almost tripled to 37%. At Expert Investor Denmark earlier this week, it exceeded 50%…
Appetite for high yield bonds is at its strongest for almost three years: some 40% of the fund selectors our researcher met on his trip to Madrid earlier this spring will up their exposure while only 10% are going to sell. The comeback of high yield is all the remarkable considering appetite was at an…
As Spain is now the fastest-growing eurozone country, with year-on-year GDP growth of 2% in the final quarter of 2014, fund selectors in the capital Madrid are now Europe’s biggest optimists when it comes to the economic prospects. A record 80% of fund selectors have a positive macroeconomic outlook, while bears are nowhere to be seen.…
