Pension funds, insurance double their portfolio in East Africa
By Mnaku Mbani
The East Africa pension funds and insurance
companies across the sub-region have nearly doubled their portfolio assets in
recent years, from $10.7 billion in 2011 to about $19.1 billion in 2015.While only a small percentage of the total
populations of these countries have access to pension and insurance products,
these industries are growing, and these local investors will almost certainly
play a significant role in how the EAC’s capital markets develop in the coming years.
This is according to the paper on Capital Markets
in the East African Community: Developing the Buy Side prepared by the Milken
Institute Center for Financial Markets
Survey findings
indicate that these investors generally are taking a more diversified portfolio
approach and desire to further diversify their portfolios.
The survey findings also indicate that many
institutional investors in the EAC continue to hold a significant share of
their assets in government securities, however, as well as real estate and bank
deposits, while investing very little in corporate securities.
Preferential regulatory treatment may be
inducing at least some institutional investors in the EAC to over allocate to
government securities at the expense of other asset classes.
Maoni
Chapisha Maoni