Who animates (and shakes) the future of Anima
Facts, numbers, disputes and scenarios on the largest managed savings group in Italy. The article by Emanuela Rossi
Movements around Anima, the largest managed savings group in Italy. Amundi, the French asset manager controlled by the French Crédit Agricole, has increased its shareholding – bringing it to 5.16% – but has made it known that it has no expansionist aims, reassuring Banco Bpm – which in April saw the Crédit Agricole holding 9.18%, now the largest shareholder of Piazza Meda – and Poste Italiane, the first two shareholders of Anima.
OLD AND NEW MEMBERS
According to the latest data communicated by Consob, the first shareholder of Anima is Banco Bpm (20.622%), followed by Poste Italiane (10.324%). In third place on the podium is Amundi (5.16%) who precedes Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone (3.192%). The Anima website shows that as at 30 April 2022 it holds 1.8% of the share capital.
THE BUSINESS
But let's see how the Anima group is developed. The parent company, Anima Holding, has been a public company listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 2014. Anima Sgr is the operating company controlled by the holding which in turn controls Anima Asset Management Ltd, a joint-stock company under Irish law, founded in June 1999, and Anima Alternative Sgr. Alessandro Melzi d'Eril is CEO and general manager of Anima Holding and Anima sgr, and also chairman of Anima alternative sgr.
As we learn from the site, Anima has over 1 million customers, more than 300 employees, 204 billion euros of assets under management in 2021, up from 194.3 in 2020. According to La Verità "certainly Anima, which has agreements of long-term partnerships with Banco itself and also with Mps as well as a commercial agreement with Poste (which is also a shareholder with 11%), is at the center of cross-interests that can become even more intertwined when the next moves not only in banking ".
THE MOVE OF AMUNDI
However, Amundi wanted to clear the field of possible misunderstandings. “As part of the open funds managed by Amundi for its clients – the spokesperson told the press agencies – some of these funds, taken together, have recently exceeded the 5% stake in Anima. This situation is normal for a large asset manager. This stake is held through funds managed on behalf of third parties and in no way constitutes a position built by Amundi for its own account ”. Therefore, we have no expansionist aim on Anima.
Moreover, the previous day it was Giampiero Maioli, who leads Crédit Agricole Italia, who excluded an interest in the company after the subsidiary of the French group had already raided 9.2% of Banco Bpm's capital. “At the moment we are exclusively focused on bancassurance” and there is “no question that concerns us about Anima” said Maioli throwing water on the fire. Looking at Amundi's shares, it should be remembered that it also has a distribution agreement with Unicredit (expiring in 2026) and with Anima sul Creval (expiring in 2027).
Returning specifically to Anima, for La Verità "analysts and the market believe that the stock does not lack speculative interest in terms of mergers and acquisitions" and recall that Anima has over 100 billion euros of government bonds 'in its belly', or almost 5% of our public debt. Therefore, “the operation of Crédit Agricole through Amundi on the company led by Alessandro Melzi d'Eril could have a defensive or in any case strategic value because other players are also moving around Anima”.
CALTAGIRONE'S INTERESTS …
Among these there is also the Roman entrepreneur Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, who is a partner of Anima and who at the end of April increased to 3.192% of the holding, which he joined in March 2020 perhaps "inspired" also by the generous dividend policy. As La Verità notes in the same days, Caltagirone also strengthened its stake (to 5.5%) in Mediobanca which in turn aims to grow in managed savings and hired Marco Carreri as president of the subsidiary Che Banca !. Carreri was CEO of Anima Holding and CEO and CEO of Anima Sgr.
… AND THOSE OF GENERALI
Without forgetting what happens in Trieste. “In the event of a wedding between Anima and Amundi – writes La Verità – the two groups together would reach around 430 billion, over 17.5% of the total market. And they would challenge the second in the standings, which with its 490 billion owns 20% of the market, that is to say Generali ”. It should be remembered that the group led by Philippe Donnet has worked hard to become the exclusive insurance partner of Banco Bpm as well as Crédit Agricole, Axa and Allianz so much so that – in the presentation slides of the first quarterly of 2022 – we read that "having collected the interest of strong insurance companies "the institute intends to verify if there are" financial, strategic or operational aspects that can beat the internalization of the business plan "and that the different proposals will be measured according to" three perspectives "or" financial (creation of value for shareholders), strategic (solidity of the group's overall business model) and operational impact ".
Therefore, highlights the newspaper directed by Maurizio Belpietro, "in the operating rooms in recent weeks an alternative scenario has not been ruled out with the Lion of Trieste which could have the interest but also the opportunity to buy Anima".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/anima-cosa-succede/ on Tue, 31 May 2022 05:27:16 +0000.