Amundi has reaffirmed the growth strategies of the new group, defined priorities for its business lines and set up the integration plan after 'the preparatory efforts' carried out over the past six months 'have confirmed the strategic and industrial benefits of the acquisition' of Pioneer Investments.
The French asset manager has obtained all the necessary regulatory authorisations and fulfilled all the conditions precedent required for the acquisition of Unicredit's Pioneer, and has announced that the acquisition will be finalised on July 3, 2017.
Group CEO, and chairman of the executive committee Yves Perrier (pictured) said that the acquisition of Pioneer is a major step in the implementation of Amundi's strategy as it adds potential for value creation.
'It enables us to consolidate our position as European leader while enhancing the range of products and services offered to our clients,' said Perrier, adding that the management team and key heads are in place. 'Amundi is fully prepared to make the integration of Pioneer an opportunity to accelerate the growth of Amundi for the benefit of its clients, its employees and its shareholders.'
The completion of the integration process, which will take place over the course of the next two years, has forecasted €150m in cost synergies and €30m in revenue synergies over a full year. Amundi will also adapt its organisational governance to capture this potential in growth and productivity in line with the same principles that have prevailed the asset manager since its inception.
The new organisational structure will be supported by a retail clients division and an institutional and corporate clients division. The retail clients division which will be led by the head of the retail clients division, Fathi Jerfel, assisted by Cinzia Tagliabue, and will offer savings solutions 'fitting the needs of individual clients through the networks of our preferred partners as well as third-party distributors in Europe, Asia and the Americas'. This business currently serves over 100 million individual clients around the world and represents more than €450bn in assets under management (AUM).
The institutional and corporate clients division which has €860bn in AUM will continue to develop investment solutions targeted at corporates, insurers, institutional investors, central banks and sovereign wealth funds. This division will be headed by Dominique Carrel-Billiard, head of the institutional and corporate clients division, assisted by Laurent Bertiau.
In addition, the investment management platforms, which provide the full range of investment solutions dedicated to each client segment is expected to enhance asset class coverage and expand the solutions after the integration of Pioneer Investments. The management platforms will be headed by Pascal Blanqué, Group CIO, assisted by Vincent Mortier, as his deputy.
The firm's alpha platforms will be headed by Eric Brard (Fixed income); Romain Boscher and Diego Franzin (Equities); Mauro Ratto (Emerging markets); Matteo Germano (Multi-asset); and Ken Taubes (US Expertise). These management platforms will be distributed across six primary investment hubs: Paris, Boston, Dublin, London, Tokyo and Milan. Milan will thus become one of Amundi's global investment hubs, particularly in multi-asset investments, and the Italy-based workforce will end up significantly reinforced.
Regarding to the business lines, which are operated only by Amundi, Pedro Antonio Arias remains head of real and alternative assets division; Fannie Wurtz as head of ETF, indexing & smart beta; Thierry Ancona and Thierry Darmon as co-heads of liquidity solutions; Jean-Philippe Bianquis, as head of structured; and Xavier Collot as head of employee savings and retirement.
The new operations, services and technology division, which covers IT, middle office, client servicing, trading desks and Amundi Services, will be headed by Guillaume Lesage, assisted by David Harte; while the business monitoring and control division, composed by HR, communication, risk management, audit, legal and compliance, will operate under the responsibility of Bernard de Wit, who will also be in charge of steering the Amundi-Pioneer integration project. The finance and strategy division will fall under the responsibility of Nicolas Calcoen, group CFO, assisted by Domenico Aiello.
Amundi Group's new organisational structure will be global in scope and methods with regard to investment management processes and the management of a shared operational and control infrastructure, and will also have a local footprint to ensure a close relationship with clients.
The French asset manager said the new structure will be deployed in more than 30 countries. All of the country and regional heads have been designated; while Giordano Lombardo, Group CEO and CIO of Pioneer Investments, will be leaving the Group after the transaction is finalised.
Pioneer adds over €222bn in assets under management (AUM) to Amundi, and its funds have been the underlyings for 174 products, and has also been the distributor of 67 products, almost exclusively funds, according to the SRP database according to the SRP database. Pioneer's structured funds accounted for 5% of overall structured products sales in Europe in 2014, with €5bn in sales, according to SRP data.
Amundi appears as the distributor in 30 products marketed in France, Italy and Hong Kong of which 22 products are still live, according to the SRP database. The Credit Agricole and Societe Generale asset management joint venture also appears as third party in 95 products sold in France, Belgium, Greece and Austria, of which 55 are still live.
In addition, Amundi appears as the bond provider of 190 products sold in France, Austria and Belgium of which 144 are live; and 159 as a derivative manufacturer also sold in France and Belgium of which 121 are still live products.
Amundi reported AUM in Q1 2017 amounted to €1.1bn as of March 31, 2017, (net inflows of €32.5bn in the first quarter). Net inflows for exchange-traded funds (ETFs), at €4.2bn, were high while for real, alternative and structured assets, net inflows were negative owing to the end of an asset backed securities (ABS) portfolio management mandate for the ECB (€6.9bn), which took the management of this portfolio back in-house.
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