The Analysis of Institutional Investors and the Strategic Asset Allocation Process

The acquisition of knowledge and awareness about dynamics and tools of investment thanks to information and the now inexpensive consultancy has led people towards a progressive growth of attention of problems related to the management of individual wealth, trying to make as much money as possible but with a certain security with a lack of risk. The evaluation of investment and the asset management play a very important role within each company because each project defines in detail the path that it intends to follow for its prosperity or recovery and for its subsequent stabilization in the sector in which is committed. Thanks to the choice of managers about the coordination of the organization’s activity to maximize the value of assets, connected to a careful analysis of the financial risk, we try to return the investment complying with the client's expectations to the utmost. This thesis aim is to study the process of choice of strategic asset allocation and the related structure of the comparts of investments in the case of pension funds, upon a contextualization and description of the institutional investors that today are the main financial powers and who play a fundamental role in the management of the savings and to aid the company. To carry out these studies, there are subsequently reported data and concepts acquired by working in the field through to the internship experience gained at the Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A.. I deal specifically with the scheme of the defined contribution pension fund, characterized by a number of subscribers of about 72.500 and a net asset destined for services of € 5.054.614.543 (balance sheet figured on 31st December 2017), examining the asset allocation and assessing the financial performance. I have also incorporated the difference in financial management of pension funds across Italy, U.S.A, United Kingdom and Australia/New Zealand, comparing it with Unicredit S.p.A., UBI Banca S.p.A., JP Morgan Chase & Co, Barclays Plc and The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited. The paper concludes with some considerations about possible prospects that could characterize the asset management in the future.