The 2025 CIO Sentiment Survey, a global collaboration between Top1000funds.com and Casey Quirk, part of Deloitte Consulting, finds asset owners more confident of reaching their return targets, but less favourable towards equities, based on valuations. For the first time in three years asset owners are looking to expand their external manager roster.
Geopolitical tension—specifically centered on conflicts in Iran and the Middle East—has jumped to the forefront of investor concerns.
The era of broad-market passive investing is seeing a pullback, particularly in fixed income. Investors are moving toward active, unconstrained strategies to navigate volatility.
Artificial Intelligence has emerged as a double-edged sword for institutional leaders, impacting both their internal operations and their portfolio construction.
Global asset owners are feeling less confident about meeting their return targets in 2026 as ongoing wars in Iran, which has spilled over to the Middle East, brought geopolitical risk back on top of mind. Notably, more allocators have flagged that they are willing to dial up risks to achieve performance objectives, according to the 2026 CIO Sentiment Survey – a global initiative of Top1000funds.com.
The survey, which is now in its 11th year, has become an important annual barometer around asset allocation decisions, risk appetite and organisational design trends among asset owners.
This year’s respondents are predominantly chief investment officers of pension funds, endowments, foundation and sovereign wealth funds. Over half (52 per cent) of the respondents work for large allocators, defined as having more than $25 billion in assets. Geographically, 58 per cent of the funds are domicile in North America, with the rest spread across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America.
“You have to pick from your multiple battles, if you want to call them that,” says Elmer Huh, CIO of US not-for-profit endowment M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust and member of the Oregon Growth Board, who participated in the survey. These include risks of recessions, potential market correction around AI company valuations and escalating regional conflicts. “There are multiple things that are on top of investors’ minds. Some of them will hit their inflection points, and some of them won't,” he says. But investors have to brace for persistent volatility in the coming years regardless.
Confidence in Meeting Return Target
% of respondents choosing "Yes"
Taking More Risk to Achieve Return Target
% of respondents choosing "Yes", 2022 – 2025
In equities, asset owners are still worried about valuation and concentration risks as equity risk remain the number one concern for participants. However, there are more CIOs looking to increase their equity allocations than those who are looking to decrease it. The trend is particularly pronounced around active emerging markets equities and active global equities.
Emerging markets equities have experienced renewed enthusiasm from investors as the asset class posted stellar performance in the past year. The MSCI Emerging Markets index returned 50 per cent on a one-year net return basis while MSCI ACWI returned 25 per cent, both in US dollar terms and as of February 2026.
Fixed income also saw a net positive planned allocation change, with active unconstrained fixed income and active emerging market debt the sub strategies with highest planned net allocation increase. More investors are taking money out of passive fixed income than those putting capital in.
Sentiment towards alternatives tells an interesting story as appetite for the category broadly has hit a five-year low, with only a net of 9 per cent respondent planning to increase allocation there this year, compared to the five-year peak of 38 per cent in 2022.
But the sub asset classes are seeing vastly different trends. While more funds are looking to increase hedge funds, infrastructure/real assets and private credit allocations than decrease it, the survey saw reverse sentiment in private equity, real estate and venture capital.
When asked if the worry around private markets exits, especially regarding private equity, will persist in 2026, QIC state investment CIO Allison Hill, who participated in the survey, is expecting a divergence of view among asset owners. QIC is the sovereign wealth fund for Australia’s Queensland state government.
“I'm hopeful with strong macroeconomic backdrop that it is a good environment for exits. But I think those exits will probably likely be really split across continuation funds, take up by other private roll-ups into other private equity companies and in some cases, IPOs,” she tells Top1000funds.com.
“I think the IPO market in particular has been a little bit slower than historically in recent years, and hopefully that rectifies, but it is definitely an issue that's weighing on the private equity sector.”
Managers can expect to work harder for investor capital this year as only a net 2 per cent of CIOs are planning to add new partners into their manager roster. This is compared to a net of 28 per cent and net 19 per cent in 2025 and 2024 respectively.
In alternatives, private credit has the highest planned net manager allocation increase, followed by private equity, with some respondents highlighting the need to access more specialist managers. Real estate has a net manager allocation decrease.
A new pressure point has emerged among CIOs as the top challenge investment leaders are experiencing is personal time constraints, followed by data or AI constraints and understaffed internal team. “I'd say the thing that I want to focus on more, apart from connecting with our managers, is making sure that I'm connecting with our team and that we're maintaining that cadence, rhythm and a missional mindset to say ‘hey, are we all on the same page about X?,” Huh says.
“Do we feel like we're slipping anywhere – so having some really good conversations around that on a regular cadence.”
The results of the CIO Sentiment Survey broken down into investment impact and themes
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Casey Quirk’s Skriba said. Some respondents voiced concerns that the alternatives markets may be approaching saturation.
Asset owners’ interest in alternatives reached a height in 2021 when a net of 45 per cent respondent said they are planning to increase allocations in the area. While the demand has been trending downwards in recent years, 2026 has hit a three-year low.
Only a net of 9 per cent of respondents said they will allocate more to alternatives this year; however, the sub asset class breakdown tells a bifurcated story.
While a net of 24 per cent of chief investment officers are looking to increase allocation in hedge funds and infrastructure and real assets and 22 per cent plans to invest more in private credit, a net of 7 per cent of respondents are looking to decrease allocation in real estate and venture capital, and 2 per cent plans to trim private equity.
QIC state investment CIO Allison Hill says the sovereign investor is adding to both fund of fund and direct investment exposures in the hedge fund space. She is of the view that given diverging rate directions in central banks around the world and other aspects of the economy, it’s a fertile ground for active return opportunities across equities, bonds and currency.
“We're really just thinking about, how do we add things to that segment of the portfolio that are differentiated to our current portfolio and really trying to give us access to different potential alpha streams, and in doing so, trying to create a little bit more resilience in the portfolio.”
Private credit (26 per cent) and private equity (15 per cent) have the largest net percentage of CIOs looking to increase manager relationships. Elmer Huh, CIO of the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust notes the dynamics of manager performance in private equity and venture capital, to which the fund has a large exposure.
“We know that PE has been very inconsistent in terms of top quartile performing managers, unlike the persistency in venture where once you find the top quartile manager, it's highly likely they will continue to repeat,” he says.
“So we're constantly in this mode of trying to look for what is the best lower middle market private equity manager, and we'll continue to look for them and slowly replace some of our old private equity with that new private equity.
“We will allocate a certain amount each year, which may end up being more than what we have, just because we know that's where, if we get it right, that's where the alpha will come into play.”
In contrast, real estate has seen a net of 6 per cent respondents who are looking to cull the number of managers they work with.
Percent of CIOs Making Allocation Changes (Median)
Median, 2022-2026
needs Heading
Net Changes by alt asset class, 2026
Hedge Funds
Infra/Real Assets
Private Credit
Private Equity
Real Estate
Venture Capital
