Tokio Marine plans to increase euro corporate bonds

Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance plans to increase its holdings of foreign bonds in the year to March, focusing on euro corporate bonds and floating rate dollar bonds, senior investment planning officials said on Thursday. The core unit of Tokio Marine Holdings has no plan to reduce currency hedging on its foreign debt investment in the current financial year to next March, the officials also said.
"We will focus mostly on euro denominated bonds given the high cost of dollar hedging," said Masahiro Tajima, manager of asset allocation at Tokio Marine told Reuters in an interview. The costs of dollar hedging is linked to US short-term interest rates and have been rising sharply in recent quarters due to the Federal Reserve's rate hikes.