FRANCE – Paris-based asset management companies, AGF Asset Management and Dresdner RCM Gestion have joined forces to create one of France’s largest asset managers, with €54bn under management.

The new entity, to be called AGF Asset Management, is expected to have a particularly strong domestic presence in third party management. The two companies will formally merge in December.

The merger proposal forms part of the integral growth strategy of both AGF, the French global financial services group, and giant German insurance group, Allianz, which took over Dresdner Bank, Dresdner RCM Gestion’s parent company, earlier this year.

The deal will initially involve a lease-management arrangement for Dresdner RCM Gestion’s activities before the two companies formally merge.

The new company will target insurance and retail customers as well as institutional and corporate clients.

Chairman of the executive board of the new company will be Géraud Brac de la Perrière and Michel Haski will be managing director. De la Perrière was formerly managing director of AGF Asset Management before the link-up, whilst Haski was managing director at Dresdner RCM Gestion.

Says de la Perrière: “The merger project was simply logical. We knew that the merger of the two German groups would give birth to a world giant in financial services with particularly ambitious plans for asset management.”

Haski adds: “We immediately saw that the obvious complementary nature of the merger between the German companies at group level could be matched locally.”

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