While 2025 was a turbulent year for all, AllianceBernstein found a good way to navigate such turbulent times. Winning the award for investment team of the year – asset manager, the firm's head of insurance allocation and strategy Deanna Leighton speaks about why the firm handled the year so well.

By Pete Carvill, Insurance Asset Risk

Insurance Asset Risk (IAR): Congratulations on winning your award. How does it feel to pick up such a trophy?

Deanna Leighton (DL): It's great. We're really excited to have won, because we feel that it highlights AllianceBernstein's dedication to Europe in general and in Insurance specifically, highlighted by increasing our local presence by naming Gerry Anderson Portfolio Manager, who is based out of London. It also really captures our focus on creative insurance and investment solutions and is representative of the work we've done.

IAR: What set you apart in 2025?

DL: It's been a couple of things. The first is that our team has been very nimble, particularly in a volatile year, and has managed that volatility well. We were still able to come up with a creative ideas and solutions for our clients. The second thing—and this is what I think sets us apart, particularly—is that we have what we call a 'holistic' management style when it comes to portfolios. We move across both public and private assets with an insurance-focused mindset and have a proprietary suite of analytics that enables us to identify attractive capital adjust relative value and risk exposures across sectors and asset classes.

IAR: It was written in your submission this year that you integrate a lot of public and private assets because of overlapping risks. If last year was, by your own admission, volatile, how did this integration help in 2025?

DL: Firstly, it was the geopolitics of last year that made things so turbulent. The announcements of tariffs from the US caused a ripple effect across the globe, the impacts of which hit in a lot of different areas. What we tried to do in that respect was to take a measured approach, which speaks to the strength of our platform.

Our teams were able to examine and re-rate every security we owned within a couple of weeks, looking at them through the context of tariff announcements. Once we had done that, we were able to change our positioning accordingly. We were also able to pull back on some private allocation to take advantage or more attractive spreads in public markets.

IAR: But you were able, through integrating public and private, to navigate these overlapping risks?

DL: Absolutely. Being able to do that in 2025 really helped, and it's the same so far this year. Right now, we're seeing last year's topics continue and intensify. One area that's been particularly interesting, and remains so, is that of data centres. There's a huge amount of capital needed to support buildouts of AI, there's a lot of debt being issued across all sectors, from private loans to public corporates and it is important to assess relative value and risk across markets.

IAR: This takes us neatly into your plans for 2026. After a successful 2025—and we're now two months into the new year—where do you see the next ten or so months going?

DL: Well, we wrote our 2026 outlook back in November, and a lot of it still holds true. There has been some volatility at the beginning of the year, and we cannot get around that. On the liability side, we expect to see continued M&A activity in the insurance space. On the asset side, we think demand for private credit and AI will be key themes. We will focus on achieving differentiated outcomes for our client by focusing on key risk areas for insurers: rating migrations, defaults, liquidity, cash flow variability and headline volatility.

IAR: It's interesting from the insurance perspective, because there's been a lot of M&A activity in recent years, with a lot of pension funds going for buyout. How does that impact things on the insurance side?

DL: Well, a lot of people are now reaching retirement age so with this demographic shift, a lot of insurance products are essentially retirement products. At the same time, rates are still high which is supportive of the annuity sales. Changes to regulatory requirements have also results in Insurers seeking creative capital solutions through M&A, reinsurance, sidecars, etc.

IAR: We've mentioned that overlap, or integration, of public and private assets a lot. How does that trend look to move over the rest of the year?

DL: The convergence between the two is a trend that we expect to see continue. There's going to be a lot more headlines about private assets becoming public ones. There's also a lot more transactions being seen on the private side. It will become increasingly important to work with managers that have the tools and process to look at risk exposures and value across asset classes.