At this year’s Amundi World Investment Forum, retirement emerged as a major top-of-mind topic across the plenary sessions, breakouts, peer-to-peer discussions and the closing exchanges on the consequences of current trends for investors.
For pension providers, the challenge is not simply to accumulate assets, but to invest them in a way that supports income, protects purchasing power and remains workable over a long retirement period. That has implications for portfolio construction, member segmentation and the role of private markets.
This is also consistent with Amundi’s recent research into lifecycle investing, which argues that de-risking over time is a rational response to the decline in human capital, the increase in risk aversion as retirement approaches, and the growing importance of sequencing risk. In practice, retirement portfolios should be designed as a journey, not as a one-off allocation.
Outcomes, not labels
One of the main lessons from the discussions is that retirement portfolios should be built around outcomes rather than asset labels. Members need a combination of growth, income, flexibility and downside protection, and these needs change over time. Notably, these are requirements that do not map neatly onto a single product or asset class.
You can now read the full whitepaper at the link below
