Amundi is building a multi-layer strategy for private markets investments in the DACH region following its takeover of Alpha Associates earlier this year, pursuing acquisitions, strengthening its institutional investor outreach, and responding to retail clients’ appetite for European Long-Term Investment Funds (ELTIF).
The next steps in Amundi’s private markets strategy in Germany are to promote “healthy growth” among institutional investors beyond what has already been achieved by Alpha Associates, and “at least double” assets under management in the next three years to €5bn, said Christian Pellis, chief executive officer of Amundi in Germany, in private markets podcast Betting Billions for newspaper Börsen-Zeitung.
On the retail side, with ETLIFs the demand for private market investments increases and “we want to play along”, he said, adding that is difficult to predict the amount of assets under management for this new type of product.
The demand for investments in private markets has also increased among institutional clients in the past few years, Pellis said, and this appetite will likely continue grow in the near future.
The share of pension investors planning to allocate capital to private markets will increase from 74% currently to 86% in the next three years, according to the 2024 Amundi Investment Solutions/CREATE Research survey. It also showed that 55% of respondents expect to increase allocations to private debt, and 49% to private equity.
Growth, both organic and via mergers and acquisitions, is important for Amundi, Pellis said, pointing to the takeover of Alpha Associate, as well as the acquisition of Germany-based Aixigo, a technology company specialised in wealth management.
Crédit Agricole, Amundi’s majority shareholder, has had talks with Allianz to buy Allianz Global Investors to create a European asset manager giant with almost €2.8trn in assets under management (AUM), but negotiations ended, according to reports.
Amundi does not yet have a direct business in Germany, a feature that AllianzGI could offer. Pellis did not comment on Amundi’s plan to take over AllianzGI.
Amundi has €2.2trn in AUM, including €70bn invested in private markets.
With Alpha Associates, its existing book of institutional clients, and a German-speaking team, Amundi has widened its reach in Europe to the DACH region.
“We invest in private equity funds, buy secondaries and make direct co-investments. We primarily select funds,” said Alpha Associates managing director Petra Salesny during the podcast.
Alpha Associates has €20bn in AUM, including €9bn invested in private equity, €6bn in infrastructure and €5bn in private debt, she noted.
“We primarily serve institutional clients in Germany. Germany, Switzerland and Austria are so far the largest institutional markets for us, where we mainly serve pension institutions and insurance companies,” she added.
Opening up private markets to private customers through evergreen fund structures and ELTIFs is “a big topic now for Germany”, Salesny said.
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