GERMANY - BVI, Germany's investment industry association, has called for the Europe-wide creation of limited partnership investment companies in which multinationals would be able to pool their pension assets.
The companies - dubbed Investmentkommanditgesellschaften - would operate under existing investment laws, thereby ensuring protection for investors and against company insolvency.
A spokesman at the BVI told IPE the vehicles would be transparent when applying double tax treaties, which he said would make them attractive for foreign pension systems.
The BVI called on the German government to create the legal framework and said the vehicle would not only help members of pension funds but also Germany as a financial centre.
The BVI spokesman added: "It is such an important topic that Germany has to act in order not to be outdone by the competition in this field of occupational retirement provision."
According to the association, the establishment of similar legal frameworks in Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands illustrates the demand for pooling vehicles, as they "save costs via scaling effects", unify asset management and increase diversification and specialisation, as well as provide access to much more complex investment strategies.
At the same time, the BVI also released the latest statistics on inflows and outflows into Germany's asset management industry, showing a new peak in interest in 'spezialfonds' by institutional investors.
Last year, they invested the record sum of €70.9bn into spezialfonds, bringing the total of managed assets in the vehicles to €812.5bn.
BVI managing director Stefan Seip said there was in increase in interest in these institutional fund vehicles due to their bespoke nature.
Insurers alone invested more than €29.6bn into spezialfonds over the last year, twice as much as in the previous year.
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