Reuters – European institutional investors have long sung the praises of hedge funds, but have been slow to put money into these loosely regulated portfolios, according to a study released onWednesday.
European investors have been talking hedge funds up since 2000, when the stock investments amassed losses while hedge funds delivered strong gains for several years.
But consultants at Greenwich Associates found that many Europeans may not have acted on their glowing reviews. Indeed their most recent study shows only a small portion of the roughly $1.3 trillion invested in the world’s hedge funds comes from European institutions.
“The enthusiasm is there,” said Tobias Miarka, a Greenwich consultant who worked on the study. “But the actual increase in allocations is not as high as one might expect.”
In Germany, insurers and pension funds have invested only 2 percent, or roughly 20 billion euros, of their total portfolio with hedge funds and private equity funds, consultants found.
