A push into equities and a move away from fixed income seems to be a key feature in this edition. According to our regular investment survey (see page 16), which polled 16 pension and insurance funds with more than €230bn of assets under management, 40 per cent of investors intend to ramp up their exposure to equities over the next six months while more than two-thirds plan to dump their bond holdings.

This is despite global equity markets – triggered by falls in China – taking a dive at the end of February and the beginning of March.

The survey did find that 60 per cent of respondents have concerns with equity market risk and 20 per cent have issues with pricing but that did not stop investors increasing their equity market forecasts for the next six months – up from 4.5 per cent to 7 per cent for European stocks and up from 3 per cent to 5.7 per cent for Japanese equities.

Equities were of particular interest to Finnish investors who are getting to grips with the new investment and solvency regulations launched at the start of the year (see page 15). According to Tela, the Finnish Pension Alliance, investors increased their foreign equity holdings from around 71 per cent to 81 per cent over the course of last year and raised their overall exposure to the asset class by more than three percentage points. Pension insurance companies increased their allocation from 32.8 to 39.9 per cent.

Our profile of Danica (see page 18), Denmark’s largest pension insurer, also found that the fund increased its exposure to equities from 16 to 23 per cent last year, with more expected to follow. “The expansion of our equity holdings did not have a particular geographical focus. It was rather a general scaling up of our equity investments at the expense of bonds and should be seen as a long-term strategic change in order to increase returns,” Jens Dalskov, the fund’s CIO told nrpn.

Chris Newlands, editor

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