Pension funds and asset managers put the growing availability of emerging market investments as the most important innovation of the past 10 years, according to a study of the sector that may also resonate with the wealth management business.

Asked which innovation delivered the most value, a survey of 108 pension plans and 396 asset managers said emerging markets (about 58 per cent), followed in descending order by emerging market bonds; high yield bonds, liability driven investments, and in fifth place, exchange-traded funds.

The findings came from a report called Investment Innovations: Raising the Bar, by Amin Rajan of CREATE Research, a UK-based organisation, and supported by Principal Global Investors and Citi. The institutions surveyed by the report hold a collective $29 trillion of assets worldwide.

But for all the positive developments in recent years, the 2008 credit crunch, and the associated recriminations against groups such as bankers, regulators and hedge fund managers, have left a sour taste, the report said.

“The 2008 crisis overwhelmed most innovations. Even a seen-it-all investor was stunned. Adoption of the identified clusters gained significant traction across the Atlantic in the last decade. But the 2008 credit crisis overwhelmed their impact. Strategies that were meant to thrive on volatility – e.g. hedge funds and currency – came unhinged. Their idiosyncratic risks were overwhelmed by the systemic ones,” it said.

The investment innovations that were least valued by investors, the report said, were leverage; structured products; portable alpha and currency funds.