European Director Strategic Research Mercer and Phil Edwards

institutional investors: The investors surveyed had more than 950 billion euros in assets under management, according to Euro News. The combination of low and even negative yields across a number of euro zone bond markets, modest risk premia, and rising volatility creates a challenging environment for return generation, said Phil Edwards, European Director of Strategic Research in Mercer investments business, in a statement. The poll of nearly 1,100 investors across 14 countries showed an increase in allocation to alternatives of 2 percentage points from a year earlier, to 14 percent of assets. Separately, a survey by executive search group Armstrong International of 305 North American institutional investors showed 78 percent of respondents were investing or planning to increase their allocations to European alternative assets. It feels very much like a land grab. We’ve never detected this level of positive sentiment on the part of North American institutional investors, said Martin Armstrong, Chairman of Armstrong International, in a statement. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.