Analysis

• Equities exposures - feast, then famine, for Europe's CIOs

  29 May 2023

  Whether they love them or hate them, Europe's CIOs hold shares, directly and in funds they came to about one-fifth of their GAs in Q3 2023. Appreciating or reviling the exposure may rather depend on the year, David Walker reports

  

• Italian CIOs welcome BTP yields rising - but maybe not their "exploding" - in 2022

  24 May 2023

  While European CIOs welcomed debt yields heating up again in 2022, for Italians BTPs underwent a truly combustible expansion, David Walker finds

  

• The US battles against ESG

  22 May 2023

  US climate change politics have hit a turning point. What started off as mild disgruntlement against woke investing now looks to have turned into an all-out war by right-leaning states against climate siders. It is enough to make the head spin. Sarfraz Thind reports

  

• US debt ceiling drama strikes again

  18 May 2023

  Grubby politics are again featuring as the spoiler for financial market equilibrium. The US debt ceiling standoff seems to be an annual affair—but this one looks a lot more serious than those in the past. Sarfraz Thind reports

  

• Benelux insurers' investment capital bills gyrate, in time with markets, in 2022

  18 May 2023

  Some insurers faced triple-digit hikes in interest rates SCRs as equities and spread risks dramatically gave way, David Walker reports

  

• CNP Assurances' philosophy of 'investing meaningfully'

  17 May 2023

  In the third and final part of this series, chief investment officer Olivier Guigné discusses the French insurer's approach to sustainability investing and why biodiversity needs to become an economic necessity. Interview by Vincent Huck

  

• Northern exposure - equities bestow mixed blessings on Nordic/Scandinavian insurers in 2022

  15 May 2023

  Markets may have dived as rates, geopolitical tension and inflation rocketed, but Scandinavian and Nordic insurers' faith in equities was not always misplaced. David Walker reports

  

• Investing made simpler, in a more complex world, at CNP Assurances

  10 May 2023

  In the second of this three-part interview, chief investment officer Olivier Guigné discusses the current investment landscape for insurers, and where CNP Assurances sees opportunities going froward. Interview by Vincent Huck

  

• Getting real about sustainable assets?

  09 May 2023

  Panellists at Insurance Asset Risk's real asset conference 2023 debunk the idea of a 'greenium' and praise a widening of the real asset sustainability investment universe. Josh Adcock reports.

  

• The sun shines again on Spanish general accounts

  08 May 2023

  As fixed income yields rise, Spanish insurers' CIOs may reflect happily on their 76% weighting to fixed interest interests - and smile again, David Walker writes