Most assets are invested in collective funds and discretionary accounts. Assets in collective schemes represent a large amount of total asset managed. Insurance companies manage the supplementary corporate pension funds, some of the investments of the complementary reserves and some of the profit-sharing and savings plans. Banks manage most of the occupational profit-sharing and savings plans and advise on the complementary scheme reserves. Apart from pension funds and supplementary profit-sharing and savings plans, insurance assets and corporate liquidity comprise the bulk of institutional assets in France.
Insurance companies are both sources and managers of assets.
As sources they hand out a fair amount of money in external contracts. These are typically awarded to bank-managed collective investment schemes, although some segregated account appointments are made. As managers of assets, insurance companies are very powerful. While pensions and insurance are obvious lines of business, they are also gaining clients from the private individual market. Insurance companies have shown strong performance in the collective scheme market and, through tie-ins with banks, have been able to market that performance through established distribution networks.