Archive

  • Sega drives Conning to new frontiers

    11 January 2017

    Rich Sega has been driving Conning towards a more diversified asset base to meet the challenges that US insurers face in the low yield environment. He talks to Sarfraz Thind about the shifting demands of US insurers.

  • Upholding a duty to ESG investing

    10 August 2016

    NN's chief investment officer Jelle van der Giessen on investing responsibly in tough economic times. Asa Gibson reports.

  • Creativity is the key for Ageas's Vermeir

    22 June 2016

    Ageas's CIO Wim Vermeir tells Sarfraz Thind how, with negative yields biting, he has been steering the insurer towards a more dynamic portfolio

  • Talanx's CIO Thomas Mann focuses on idiosyncratic risk

    08 January 2016

    Diversification is key to defending your company against the unknowns like the ones that Mann faced during the 2008 crisis. That experience was crucial. "You learn how to protect your assets," he tells Sarfraz Thind

  • Generali embarks on more active investment policy

    21 December 2015

    Generali has been seeking to expand its investment horizons in a bid to combat the impact of low European interest rates. But the pace of change is slow and Solvency II's stringent capital rules are partly to blame, as the company's EMEA CIO, Andreas Hoffmann, explains to Sarfraz Thind

  • Hardie cautiously re-risks Direct Line's portfolio

    08 October 2015

    Direct Line's investment boss Jim Hardie has been steering the UK general insurer's investment portfolio into more dynamic areas. But he is at pains to stress his conservative approach. By Sarfraz Thind

  • Pimco advances on the European front

    12 August 2015

    Despite its well-documented problems during the past year or so, Pimco remains one of the biggest managers of insurance assets in the world. And Matthieu Louanges, head of the European financial institutions group (FIG), believes that insurance is the most promising sector for future growth. Sarfraz Thind reports

  • Vermeir: "It took us one and a half years to prepare for infrastructure investing"

    19 June 2015

    Group head of investments at Ageas, Wim Vermeir, talks to Hugo Coelho about the pluses and minuses of investing in infrastructure loans, including proposals to revise the capital charges under the impending Solvency II regime

  • Allianz CIO prepares for post-QE volatility

    14 May 2015

    Andreas Gruber, CIO of Allianz, handles one of the biggest insurance investment portfolios in the world. Here he talks to Sarfraz Thind about the structure used to support multiple regions and assets, the attractions of illiquid assets and being ready for when the bubble bursts at the end of quantitative easing

  • Friends Life CIO values his investment banking skills

    13 April 2015

    At Friends Life Robert Groves has brought an innovative approach to the role of CIO from his previous career in banking. Right now his biggest challenges are ensuring Friends Life's assets are eligible for the matching adjustment and sourcing higher-yielding investments, as Sarfraz Thind explains