How French Institutional investors have invested over the last ten years?

Abstract

Actual Asset Allocations of Institutional investors which weight heavily on the financing of developped economies are rarely studied because date bases of such portfolios are not easily available. Thanks to a set of annual surveys performed by the French asset owner association ( Af2i ) during the last ten years ( 2009-2019) this paper investigates portfolio allocations sorted by categories and sizes of investors. It also investigates wether their evolutions are influenced by major events like the quantitative easing of the ECB and introduction of the new Solvency 2 regulation.Results show the remarkably stable asset allocation of French institutional investors, the similarities of large insurers portfolios and greater diversity of smaller institutions portfolios. These results may open a new area of study on actual investment behavior of institutions.