FRANCE – Four of France’s biggest asset managers – AXA France, BNP Paribas, HSBC France and Société Générale – have established a joint venture to administer roughly four million employee defined contribution accounts.

“This platform is set to become the leading player in employee savings account administration in France,” said a statement released today.

It will allow for the pooling of administration resources, yet partners will also be able to continue to distribute own-branded products to clients, said the release.

A simplified limited company, Service Epargne Enterprises, has been established under chairman and chief executive Nicole Roosz-Longobardi (SG), deputy chief executive Xavier Colomer (BNP) and chief operating officer Véronique Raby-Lemoine (HSBC).

According to SG head of employee savings Jean-Baptiste Segard, from today this executive committee will “serve the interests of the platform”.

Ownership of the venture’s capital – pegged at an initial €213,607 at the start of January - will be updated annually based on the business volume contributed by each partner.

The current standing is BNP (33.5%), Société Générale (36.7%), HSBC (18.1%) and AXA (11.7%).

Segard told IPE that a supervisory board has also been established, consisting of proportional representation, i.e. SG’s 36.7% of business volume gives it a 36.7% representation on the board. This representation will also change according to variations in business volumes.

According to SG, the board is responsible for making all major strategy decisions. There are also appropriate mechanisms in place for times of decision deadlocks.

“The aim is to provide a growing number of companies and employees with a comprehensive range of high quality services, to support the expansion of employee savings and to provide a centralised account management service in association with several fund management companies,” said the release.


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