Tokyo – Daido Life Insurance, a unit of Japan’s only publicly traded life insurer, will increase investment in hedge funds and private equity by as much as \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a550 billion, or $420 million, in the fiscal year that started April 1.<\/p>\n
The Osaka-based company will allocate \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a510 billion to \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a520 billion in hedge funds and \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a530 billion in private equity, Akio Shinju, general manager of the firm’s investment planning said in an interview last week. Holdings of stocks and bonds will be unchanged, he said. As of March 31, Daido Life held \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a5190 billion in hedge funds and \u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a5120 billion in private equity.<\/p>\n
“We started buying alternative investments in 1999 to avoid low interest rates and the negative gap between guaranteed rates to policyholders and investment returns,” Shinju said in Tokyo. “Japan’s interest rates are low relative to other countries but our investment income is fine.”<\/p>\n