Andreas E.F. Utermann

Andreas E.F. Utermann
Andreas Utermann.jpg Andreas Utermann.jpg
Born
🏡 Residence	London
🏳️ Nationality	British/German
🎓 Alma mater	Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (M.A.) London School of Economics - BSc (Econ)
💼 Occupation	CEO and Global CIO Allianz Global Investors
📆 Years active	2016-present

Andreas E. F. Utermann (born January 1966) is a British/German businessman, CEO and Global Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of Allianz Global Investors, a global asset manager, which he joined in 2002.

Early life and education

Born in Brussels of German parents, Utermann was educated at the European School of Brussels.

Following a 2 year banking traineeship with Deutsche Bank in Dortmund, Germany, Utermann moved to the UK at the age of 20, subsequently becoming a British citizen. Utermann took up studies at the London School of Economics, where he graduated with a BSc in economics in 1989. His special subject was monetary economics, and his teachers included Charles Goodhart, Mervyn King and Sushil Wadhwani. He subsequently gained an MA in Economics from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, graduating in 1990.

Upon graduating from the LSE, Utermann considered a career in journalism having completed an internship at the Financial Times. However, after an internship at S.G. Warburg in 1988, he was invited to apply for the firm's graduate programme which he joined in 1989 in its asset management company, Mercury Asset Management (MAM) following completion of his Masters degree.

Career

Utermann began his career at S.G. Warburg where he worked for its asset management division, MAM (later Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, now part of BlackRock). He spent 13 years there, working closely with Sir Paul Marshall to establish one of the leading European equities teams and subsequently rising to become Global CIO Equities and a Member of the Executive Committee.

Following his departure from MLIM in May 2002 he was hired by Joachim Faber as a Global CIO Equities and a member of the Global Executive Committee of Allianz Global Investors in October 2002. From 2012 he co-headed the firm as Global CIO alongside Elizabeth Corley, and since 2016 as CEO and Global CIO.

Utermann has been a member of the board of the CFA Society of the UK since 2011 and sits on the advisory councils of the European Institute's Advisory Board and the UK's Investment Association. In October 2016, he became a member of the board of ICMA. He was also a member of the Beirat of the DVFA.

Views on active investing

Utermann is known to have strong views on the positive role of active investing and spoken up publicly and written articles on the topic. In 2014, Utermann wrote in the Financial Times that active investors needed to take concerted action to generate meaningful outperformance for clients and avoid becoming so-called closet trackers. In 2016, he wrote in the same paper about the perils of smart beta products. He has also been an early proponent of the benefits of broader adoption of performance fees to reverse the trend towards passive investing.

Personal

Utermann lives in north-west London with his wife, Claudia, an interior designer, and their three children. Utermann is a keen participant in a range of sporting activities and supports a number of charitable causes via the Utermann Charitable Trust, in particular those committed to helping address the world's pressing environmental issues as well as further education.

Utermann is a member of the Liberal Democrats, having joined the SDP in 1986 which later merged with the Liberals. He chaired the Hampstead branch of the Lib Dems for some time a number of years ago.

Further reading

• Tassell, Tony (19 November 2002). "Former Merrill star stages his comeback". Financial Times. p. 24.

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