Survey: European Asset Allocation Survey 2017

Mercer's European Asset Allocation Survey provides a comprehensive overview of asset allocation trends across the European pension industry. It also identifies several emerging trends in the behaviour of institutional investors.

Key findings:

• More than half of UK defined benefit (DB) schemes are now cashflow negative
• Most DB schemes will be cashflow negative by 2027.
• As de-risking continues, equity allocations in UK schemes have halved to 29% from 58% in 2008.
• There is more interest in higher yielding, illiquid assets as investors diversify equity risk and build cashflow-driven approaches.

The survey provides a detailed insight into plan portfolios, how they have evolved and how stakeholders expect them to change in future. It covers 1,241 European institutional portfolios across 13 countries.