Do Investors Understand the Long-Term?
"Long-term investor" is one of the most ubiquitous terms in finance, used over 3,000 times on the websites of the world’s 20 largest asset managers. But what does it really mean?
Asset managers and asset owners think they’re long-term investors, but they don’t agree with each other on what that means. Ironically, most investors are not long-term investors, according to their own definitions.
We conducted 60 in-depth interviews with asset managers and asset owners to explore the question as to what it means to be a long-term investor.The interviews and linked survey sought to identify how financial institutions define the term “long-term investor”, the extent to which they see value in long-termism for financial and sustainability performance, and the mechanisms to move towards more long-term financial markets.