Analysis

  • Insurers and investment risk - the rating agency’s perspective

    28 March 2019

    Antonello Aquino, associate managing director for EMEA at Moody’s, discusses why insurers are becoming more and more like asset managers, and the current trend towards riskier assets. Interview by Vincent Huck

  • Insurers need high-tech solutions in a low-liquidity world

    26 March 2019

    Peter Cornax, senior insurance investment strategist at AllianceBernstein, looks at how technology can solve illiquidity challenges as well as make investment teams faster and smarter

  • Is it really a small world after all? Protectionism strikes back

    21 March 2019

    Most insurers’ chief investment officers and asset managers have grown up investing during the long trend of beneficial globalisation. The trend was their friend. But as evidence of its unravelling builds, they are asking if the elastic is just stretching or about to snap back. Vincent Huck went in search of answers

  • As the credit cycle enters its later stages, insurers prepare for its end

    19 March 2019

    With global growth expected to slow down this year and some predicting a US recession in 2020, the health of the credit market, its ability to cope with rate rises and a loss of liquidity, holds huge significance to insurers investments. Adam Leach reports

  • Lack of uniformity in sensitivity analysis raises questions

    14 March 2019

    While some insurers prepare for full force hurricanes, others get ready for light showers. Insurance Risk Data reveals the extend of diversity in the stress test, and why it might be of concern. David Walker reports

  • The BBB effect: apocalypse or opportunity?

    12 March 2019

    US insurers are holding bigger volumes of BBB-rated corporate debt than at any time in the past. A turning credit cycle could tip significant amounts of these to junk. But while the headline figures look startling, is this really a precursor to the apocalypse or just another bad news story? Sarfraz Thind reports

  • French insurers partner up for major unlisted SME funding initiative

    07 March 2019

    From Axa France to BNP Paribas Cardif and CNP Assurances, France’s largest have helped unlock €22.2bn of fund-based investments for French small caps. Their early-stage returns may be unclear. But their ambitions for the next phase of their investment is only the greater, the heavy hitters tell Vincent Huck

  • Asian insurance AuM gold rush

    05 March 2019

    Regulatory changes in Asia combined with challenging local market conditions are teasing Asian insurers’ interest in diversifying their investments abroad, this could be a gold rush for Western asset managers. Vincent Huck reports

  • Pomona’s private equity niche

    28 February 2019

    Pomona Capital’s founder, Michael Granoff explains how his company has tapped into the private equity niche and how it is preparing for a potential turn in the cycle. Interview by Sarfraz Thind

  • At the helm of Europe's giant general account

    26 February 2019

    Pascal Christory, chief investment officer at Axa Group, describes the difficult balance between centralisation and flexibility in an international group's investment strategy. Interview by David Walker