Lippens: Income-seekers face ‘daunting challenge'

When it comes to generating income, Pictet Asset Management believes it has seen the future because it has already been there, done that and bought the T-shirt.

This would be good news indeed because, as Bruno Lippens, a senior investment manager in the group’s Sector & Theme funds team, points out, income-seeking investors and their advisers are facing a daunting array of challenges. “Around the world, interest rates are low and markets are volatile,” he began. “Who knows where the euro is going? What is going to happen to the UK economy with all its austerity measures? Can the world’s central banks ultimately react quickly enough to mop up the liquidity they are pumping into the market and avoid countries moving from very low inflation into hy...