GERMANY - DB Advisors says institutional investors are increasingly turning toward multi-asset strategies in a bid to improve their risk/reward profile.

The institutional asset management arm of Deutsche Bank currently manages €30bn in multi-asset strategies and expects this figure to grow continuously, as interest for these strategies is particularly strong and growing "in Asia and continental Europe".

Sabine Bollo, head of multi-asset at DB Advisors, said: "Modern multi-asset strategies are serving the need for diversification, offering highly dynamic asset allocation within a certain risk budget that is defined in advance."

She explained that the name 'multi-asset' covered various strategies - from total return to traditional balanced funds - and that institutional investors were looking for transparency and liquidity.

Bollo added that institutional investors were increasingly considering the effects of risk-taking when making asset allocation decisions, as they were looking for yield in investments but also kept in mind capital preservation.

The investment house also quoted statistics collected by the German investment association BVI, according to which more than 60% of new assets in Germany invested in 2010 went into Spezialfonds, which allow a combination of various asset classes within one fund.