The winner in France was Aventis, following two years of negotiating a change in the corporate governance and investment strategies. This followed hard on the heels of the 1999 merger that saw 13 different savings funds offered to Aventis employees.
Petra Zamagna says to win the IPE award was a surprise, although she knew the changes at Aventis over the past few years had made a mark on the French asset management business.
“We did not know whom we would be up against, but knew that we had engineered changes not often seen in France. Like many of our colleagues we laboured with outdated ideas on our supervisory board, often dominated by the trades unions representatives. There were also managers with old-fashioned views and weak benchmarks. Since the merger, we have managed to change that outlook and, perhaps surprisingly, bring board members with us.”
The restructuring meant that 18 managers applied to manage various funds, and for the first time Zamagna had persuaded the supervisory board to employ a consultant for the process.
“Again, this distinguished us from other funds, as consultants are rarely used in France. I felt it was important that we should have that professional and neutral analysis. The result was a top-to-bottom restructuring. Now we are managing assets world-wide in a far more transparent manner. We are also looking at how other funds work and I think it is fair to say we have exercised the synergies in our company better than before. Effectively, we have managed to bring together the two sides of our business which emerged as a result of the merger.”
Zamagna says investment strategy has also changed, with a greater use of specialists, and a diversification not seen before. “We have introduced a style diversification that would not have been possible in previous years.”
All these moves are at the cutting edge of change in France where asset management remains under-developed. “So long as saving funds are run by human resources departments and trades unions you will not have professional management in place,” Zamagna adds.
She says the award has raised the profile of the work she and her team have been doing inside the company, but adds that the debate the awards have generated will help some of the least developed areas of asset management to be brought forward and improved by a new professional
outlook.

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