The PwC Market Research Centre has just released the new version of its annual European Institutional Investors Poster. Since its first edition, the annual poster has become a reference tool for asset managers who need a quick overview of the European institutional market.

The poster offers a comprehensive illustration of the current European asset management market, including size and structure, asset allocations, top locations of institutional assets and the largest institutional investors. Specifically, the map features the European pension fund market, insurance market, fund of funds market, and country origins and destinations of portfolio investments outside Europe.

"This year’s edition confirms the growing role of institutional investors in Europe and the importance of the investment fund business,” said Dariush Yazdani, partner and PwC Market Research Centre Leader. “The European asset management market reached EUR 19.3 trillion at the end of 2014, an increase of 15% from 2013. Institutional investors now account for 76% of those assets compared to 69% two years ago.”

The new European Institutional Investors Poster reveals encouraging numbers: institutional assets in the top 15 European locations increased by 12% over the past two years. The UK remains in first place in terms of assets under management, but Germany has overtaken France to become the second largest institutional market.

Insurance companies are still the largest category of institutional investors in Europe with an investment portfolio of EUR 8.4 trillion followed by pension funds with more than EUR 5.5 trillion in assets. Pension markets in Europe are still dominated by the top three countries (UK, the Netherlands and Norway) which account for 50% of total pension assets.

The poster also features the top investors and recipients of European portfolio investments. North America remained the preferred destination for European portfolio investments, with investments totaling USD 4.2 trillion and new inflows of nearly USD 494 billion. Asia Pacific followed with total investments of USD 2.0 trillion and net inflows of USD 366 billion.

The European Institutional Investors Poster is available on PwC website.