Pets delivering investor comfort

Pets deliver more than just comfort to their owners, they also provide comfort to investors, according to Insync Funds Management.

Insync has released an industry white paper titled 420 billion reasons to invest in pets, in which it argues that the pet industry is on a global growth trajectory three times greater than the forecast global growth rate for Gross Domestic Product.

“This massive industry has been growing right through all sorts of economic turbulence for over 35 years,” said Insync Head of Strategy and Distribution, Grant Pearson. “It’s creating some very successful and very large businesses.”

As well as looking into the forces and opportunities driving the industry, the White Paper also compares aspects of pet ownership today to those of 40 or so years ago.

“We have designer pets, designer pet diets and designer day care,” Mr Pearson said. “These weren’t really big back in the 1980s. It all stems from the way we have started to treat our pets as surrogate humans, slowly but surely integrating them into the very fabric of our lives.”

It is what’s known as the pet humanisation megatrend and Mr Pearson said current insights point towards further significant long-term expansion opportunities for companies within the megatrend, but only for a select few.

“The big tailwind pushing many megatrends above most economic sector growth rates, irrespective of prevailing headwinds, is the unstoppable demographic boom in Millennials and Gen-Z’ers,” he said. “Asia’s growing middle classes are on track to reach around 1Bn people by 2030 and this is also strengthening future demand.”