Europe’s Biggest Asset Manager Favors Cash Amid Growth Pessimism

Amundi, Europe’s biggest asset manager with almost $1 trillion of funds, said it increased cash holdings at the expense of equities and high-yielding bonds because global growth may be weaker than expected next year.

“Forecasters remain too optimistic about global growth for 2014,” Didier Borowski, head of strategy and economic research at Amundi, said in an interview in Geneva last week. “We have to be very cautious on risky assets in the short term.”