THE COUNTRIES of East and South-East Asia are renowned, even envied, for reshaping global supply chains. Less well appreciated is the extent to which they have redrawn the map of global capital flows. After a buying spree over the past decade or so, the region’s ten biggest economies now hold nearly $28trn in foreign financial assets, more than three times the amount in 2005 and equivalent to a fifth of global assets held by foreigners.
The shift is drawing the attention of financial watchdogs. In December the Bank for International Settlements , a club of central banks, concluded that Asian institutional investors had contributed to dollar funding stress in March 2020, as covid-19 first began to spread and markets panicked. Yet much about these financial interlinkages, and the risks associated with them, is still poorly understood.
The growth in foreign financial holdings has gone hand-in-hand with the transformation of conservative institutional investors into big players in distant corners of financial markets. A prime example is Norinchukin Bank, an agricultural co-operative based in Japan. It holds some ¥4.8trn in CLOs, securities made up of a portfolio of loans, most of which are denominated in dollars. Before it slowed purchases in 2019, it was widely considered the largest buyer of CLOs in America.
South Korea’s National Pension Service has also sought more overseas exposure, announcing a flurry of global ventures. Foreign assets made up 37% of the pension fund last year, nearly double the share in 2013, and the firm aims to increase that to 50% by 2024. The strategy is to chase returns not only abroad but also in less-liquid asset classes, before the fund’s benefit payouts start to increase in the early 2040s and its revenue surplus turns to a deficit.
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Source: The Independent - 🏆 80. / 59 Read more »