The combined asset management arms of Crédit Agricole and Société Générale will be known as Amundi, according to a statement from the firm.
At the moment, the asset manager for structured retail funds sold by the Crédit Agricole and LCL networks in France is Crédit Agricole Asset Management (Caam), which will be known as Amundi Asset Management. Caam's subsidiary Crédit Agricole Structured Asset Management (Casam), which structures these products and manages them by delegation, will itself be renamed Amundi Investment Solutions. The name change is expected to have no impact on the type or the number of products available via either provider.
SGAM will also be renamed Amundi. While the involvement of SGAM in French structured funds has always been minimal, it is interesting to note that Amundi will be active in the conception of structured funds for distribution via both the Société Générale and Crédit du Nord networks. Of course, as announced previously, the other Soc Gen asset management entity, Lyxor, will not be part of Amundi, while SGAM AI and SGAM Index have now been fully absorbed by Lyxor.
Pending final approval from the European competition authority, this newly-formed company is expected to be created on 1 January 2010 with almost €650bn under management. Once created, Amundi estimates that it will be the European front-runner in capital-guaranteed structured funds. The merger was announced back in January this year.