Future Returns: Resetting Investment Expectations for 2022

While economies across the world are strong, lofty valuations for public companies and the likelihood of interest-rate hikes mean investors are resetting their expectations for returns.

“This next phase of the economic cycle is definitely going to be slower than the record-breaking rally and pivot in the cycle that we saw over the last two years,” says Amanda Agati, chief investment officer for PNC Financial Services Asset Management Group. “We think it’s going to be a much tougher slog.”

Keep in mind, this more challenging outlook comes after a year when the S&P 500 index rose nearly 27%, capping a three-year period when the broad-market index was up more than 90%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

For 2022, the S&P 500 is projected to gain 9%, which in a non-pandemic environment would certainly be considered a “home run for large-cap domestic equities,” Agati says. But relative to the last three years, it’s certainly lower.

When it comes to public debt, PNC is even more cautious. While the bank expects a “lower-for-longer” interest-rate environment to persist for the next several years, its economists do expect rates to move higher globally in 2022, putting price pressure on most categories of bonds.

In its 10-year forecast, PNC predicts the Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate Bond Index of intermediate-term corporate and government bonds will return 2.3% annually, while the Bloomberg Global Aggregate ex-U.S. Markets Index will return 2%.

The bright star for PNC across the “multi-asset universe,” Agati says, is alternative investments—private equity, private debt, and venture capital. “There are a lot more opportunities [in alternatives] for meaningfully additive returns relative to public markets going forward,” she says.

Penta recently spoke about these opportunities with Agati, who is responsible for the investment policies guiding PNC Private Bank and PNC Private Bank Hawthorn, which works with family offices. She also guides the investment policies for PNC Institutional Asset Management.

‘Innovation and Growth’

In a slower-growing world, Agati says investors are focusing on companies offering innovation and growth, “and they’re willing to pay up for it to a degree,” she says. They will find most of these opportunities are in private markets.

While nothing is “table-pounding cheap,” even in private equity, the return expectations are higher, mainly because of the premium investors receive by agreeing to lock up their money for longer. Private-equity funds typically have fixed terms of 10 years.

Investing in private equity, however, is a multi-year process, as the strongest portfolios are diversified collections of funds with different vintage years, meaning the date the funds begin to put capital to work. “Each vintage year is unique and diverse relative to the others,” Agati says.

Private-equity funds investing in 2022, for instance, are likely to be shaped by an increase in mergers and acquisitions, buyouts, and special-purpose companies fueled by “still unprecedented fiscal and monetary support,” the bank wrote in a first-quarter investment strategy report.

Funds investing this year also will be working against a backdrop of heightened stock market volatility and uneven economic growth—both of which could create pockets of opportunity.

“The ballast that private-investment strategies can bring in particularly volatile times—not being beholden to quarterly earnings calls and the drivers around updating guidance in an uncertain backdrop—can provide comfort in portfolios,” Agati says.

Life Sciences, Technology, and Crypto

For 2022, private equity themes worth accessing include life sciences, technology, and cryptocurrency.

Life sciences are a “real area of innovation and investment” that has been catalyzed by the pandemic. In technology more broadly, there’s a boom in innovation particularly related to the metaverse, or the creation of virtual worlds.

“The tech [sector] has really been able to use the pandemic to its advantage, pulling away from the pack, and continuing to invest and allocate capital and drive innovation,” Agati says.

More entrepreneurs this year also are likely to harness blockchain technology to develop new companies and products, opportunities that will likely be made available through venture-capital funds. This “could be a very interesting vintage year for some of those exposures to take hold,” she says.

Another theme that isn’t necessarily specific to 2022 as a vintage year is impact investing in local communities. “There’s this real homegrown feeling of responsibility and duty for those who are impact-oriented or responsible investing-oriented to try to find a way to have the impact in their own backyard,” Agati says.

Finding Opportunities in Fixed-Income

One potentially bright spot in public debt is emerging markets, which are driven by variables outside of U.S. Federal Reserve policy. PNC expects the Bloomberg Emerging Markets Aggregate bond index to return 6.2% annually over the next 10 years.

That is partly because of current valuation levels, but also because PNC expects low rates globally will drive demand for emerging-market debt. Also, lofty levels for commodities exported from emerging markets have made government balance sheets in many of these countries stronger, according to the 2022 outlook.

“The growth outlook for emerging markets in general is one of the brightest in the multi-asset universe,” Agati says.

Because individual countries could experience unexpected tensions or shocks, PNC recommends investors consider investing in this sector through actively managed funds. It’s definitely a place “where astute active managers can add value to tilt toward or away from benchmark exposures,” she says.

Wealthy investors also can consider private debt funds, which invest in below-investment-grade loans, mezzanine funding, and distressed or special situation funds, according to PNC. That’s because the drivers for privately issued debt are not as closely tied to the movement in interest rates as in public markets, Agati says.

That means the cost of capital for borrowers in private markets is relatively low, providing more runway for deal-making. “Even though parts of the private market cycle and the economic cycle are further along from the bottom of the pandemic, we don’t think the private debt cycle is there,” Agati says. “It just creates a more interesting opportunity for investors.”

But as with emerging market debt, investing in private debt is enhanced by active managers. That’s in part because managers can re-price their investments quickly in response to changing conditions.

According to PNC, “allocations to private debt may be among the first to benefit from opportunities that arise among rapidly growing industries looking for new sources of capital.”

Apple and its suppliers aim to build more than 50 million iPhones in India annually within the next two to three years, with additional tens of millions of units planned after that, according to people involved.

If the plans are achieved, India would account for a quarter of global iPhone production and take further share toward the end of the decade. China will remain the largest iPhone producer.

Apple has gradually boosted its reliance on India in recent years despite challenges including rickety infrastructure and restrictive labor rules that often make doing business harder than in China. Among other issues, labor unions retain clout even in business-friendly states and are pushing back on an effort by companies to get permission for 12-hour work days, which Apple suppliers find helpful during crunch periods.

Apple and its suppliers, led by Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, generally believe the initial push into India has gone well and are laying the groundwork for a bigger expansion, say people involved in the supply chain.

Apple is emblematic of a move among companies worried about over dependence on China to move parts of their supply chains elsewhere, most often to Southeast Asia and South Asia. Diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and its allies to block Beijing’s access to advanced technology and strengthen ties with New Delhi have accelerated the trend.

The first phase of a Foxconn plant under construction in the southern state of Karnataka is expected to start operating in April, and the plant aims to make 20 million mobile handsets annually, mainly iPhones, within the next two to three years, said people with direct knowledge of the construction plans.

A further iPhone-producing mega plant is on Foxconn’s drawing board with capacity similar to the one in Karnataka, although the plans are still in a nascent stage, the people said.

Apple has also chosen India as its site for a manufacturing stage for lower-end iPhones to be sold in 2025. In this stage, known as new product introduction, Apple’s teams work with contractors in translating product blueprints and prototypes into a detailed manufacturing plan. Until now, that work was done only in China.

Combined with plans for expanded production at an existing Foxconn plant near Chennai and at another existing plant recently bought by Indian conglomerate Tata, these developments signify that Apple intends to have the capacity to make at least 50 million to 60 million iPhones in India annually within two to three years, said people involved in the planning.

Annual capacity could grow by tens of millions of units after that.

Foxconn indicated its commitment to India by announcing on Nov. 27 that it was investing the equivalent of more than $1.5 billion in the country, money that people familiar with the matter said would include production for Apple. The announcement didn’t mention the iPhone or name specific locations.

Global iPhone shipments last year totalled more than 220 million, according to research firm Counterpoint, a number that has remained steady in recent years. Because almost all iPhones are made in either China or India, China will continue to account for well over half of iPhone output.

Apple has faced challenges in China this year beyond trade tensions with the U.S., including the Chinese government instructing some officials not to use iPhones at work.

“India’s trust factor is very high,” said Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s information technology minister.

This year, for the first time, India-made iPhones were introduced on the first day of global sales of the latest model, eliminating the lag with China-made phones.

Supply-chain executives say hourly wages are now significantly lower in India than in China, but other costs such as transport remain higher, and labor unions sometimes resist rule changes sought by manufacturers.

In May, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, where Foxconn’s flagship Chennai plant is located, said he would withdraw regulations allowing a 12-hour workday, weeks after the state passed an amendment authorising the longer hours. The chief minister, M.K. Stalin, attributed the decision to opposition from labor activists.

Karnataka state has stood by a decision earlier this year to extend the workday to 12 hours, up from a previous limit of nine hours, though companies must seek approval to do so. A state labor official, G. Manjunath, said new rules also allow companies to employ women on overnight shifts without seeking government approval.

After years of battling local-content rules and other red tape, Apple this year opened its first retail stores in India. Abhilash Kumar, an India-based analyst at TechInsights, said the top-of-the-line iPhone 15 Pro Max was selling well in the country, though it costs about $700 more than in the U.S.

Apple is also making progress in India toward building a network of core suppliers, long a strength of Chinese manufacturing. Officials said this week that Japanese battery maker TDK would build a new factory in India’s Haryana state to manufacture battery cells to power Indian-made iPhones. A TDK spokesman declined to comment.

The moves don’t mean Apple and its suppliers are leaving China. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has traveled to China twice this year, stressing the country’s importance as a production hub and consumer market. He visited Luxshare, a China-based assembler that is taking a bigger role in the China portion of iPhone assembly.

On social media, Apple has assured Chinese consumers that iPhones selling in authorised channels are made in China. At an industry event in Beijing that Chinese premier Li Qiang attended in late November, Apple’s booth stressed the company’s business with Chinese suppliers.

Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said in November that China would continue to account for the largest share of Foxconn’s capital investment next year.

Liu has visited India at least three times in the past year and a half, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other officials. People involved in the planning said Modi’s home state of Gujarat in the west was one possible site of a future Foxconn plant. Meanwhile, the company has other projects in the works in the southern half of the country for electronic components and a plant likely to focus on making AirPods for Apple.

The plant in Karnataka state is under construction on 300 acres of land near the airport in Bengaluru, a southern city that is considered India’s tech hub. Officials involved in the planning said Foxconn has secured approval to invest nearly $1 billion in the plant and is seeking the go-ahead to put in an additional $600 million or so.

Combined with other projects, Foxconn’s investments in the state are likely to reach around $2.7 billion, they said.

Some iPhones are also made at a plant near Bengaluru that India’s Tata Electronics agreed in October to buy from Taiwan’s Wistron. Tata Group is the first local company to take on manufacturing iPhones.

“Apple has created an additional spoke in its India strategy by roping in the country’s largest business group—Tata—to be a part of its manufacturing system in addition to Foxconn,” said India’s junior information-technology minister, Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

—Shan Li in New Delhi and Selina Cheng in Hong Kong contributed to this article.

Future Returns: Resetting Investment Expectations for 2022

What to expect from the year ahead.

Supplier Foxconn plans to build more factories and give India a production role once limited mostly to China