Investors focus on hunt for returns outside US, says Sumitomo Trust chief
Some of the world’s biggest institutional investors are looking to lessen their dependence on the US for returns, benefiting asset managers from other regions of the world, according to the chief executive of Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management.
SuMi Trust has seen its assets under management from investors outside Japan triple over the past five years, largely driven by new passive mandates from sovereign wealth funds and central banks.
Over that period “many sovereign wealth funds and central banks have started to diversify their portfolio, both in terms of the markets in which they invest but also the investors they look to,” Yoshio Hishida told the Financial Times.
The use of renminbi for payments globally, often seen as a proxy for shifts away from US financial dominance, has risen steadily over the past decade while the dollar’s share has decreased — though it still remains on top, accounting for 42 per cent of global payments in September, according to Swift.
The fund manager, a sister company of Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, has $572bn under management making it one of the largest fund managers in Asia. Its core business remains investing on behalf of Japan’s large pension funds.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Adrienne Klasa
