Will Credit Agricole also eat Anima with Amundi?
Amundi (asset management of the French group Credit Agricole) owns 5.16% of Anima, the Italian asset management group. Facts, numbers, analyzes and scenarios
Banco Bpm was readmitted to exchange rates in Piazza Affari after an upward freeze and gained 4.2% to 3.24 euros. On the eve of the Consob updates it emerged that Amundi , the asset management company controlled by Credit Agricole, rose to 5.16% of Anima, the savings manager controlled to 20.6% by Banco Bpm.
Credit Agricole's number one in Italy, Giampiero Moioli, has ruled out that Banque Verte may be interested in asset management, underlining that the French group is "at this moment" exclusively focused on bancassurance ", but analysts and observers are not believing so much in words from the Italian top management of the Italian subsidiary of the transalpine banking group.
Credit Agricole is already the first shareholder of Banco Bpm with 9.2% of the share capital and controls 69.5% of Amundi , which stressed that the share announced yesterday is the result of stakes in various funds owned by the Group and therefore it deals with acquisitions that cannot be categorized as strategic.
Amundi Asset Management has a 5.161% stake in Anima Holding, a managed savings group listed on Euronext Milan. This can be learned from the Consob communications relating to significant shareholdings, which indicate that the transaction took place last May 17. The share is divided between the companies Cpr Asset Management Sa, Amundi Società Di Gestione Del Risparmio Spa, Nh Amundi Asset Management Co Ltd, Amundi Hong Kong Ltd, Amundi Japan Ltd, Societe Generale Gestion (S2g), Lyxor International Asset Management, Amundi Asset Management.
Amundi Asset Management is therefore now the third shareholder of the company, behind Banco BPM (20.622%), Poste Italiane (10.324%) and Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone (3.192%), again according to Consob data.
As mentioned, Banco Bpm is the reference shareholder of Anima with a 20.6% stake and is the main strategic partner, with a long distribution contract, expected until 2037 which provides for "significant protections for Anima", he recalls today Equita Sim, and assist under management for 45 billion euros, as well as a penetration of the total funds of the bank's customers of 69%, remarks Mf / Milano Finanza.
On the other hand, Credit Agricole is the controlling shareholder of Amundi, which is worth 10.5 billion on the market (the stock trades with an expected price / profit ratio in 2022 of 9 times, 10 times without counting the performance fees) with a participation of 69.8%. In the past, rumors had emerged of Amundi's possible interest in Anima.
The Credit Agricole operation through Amundi on Anima could have a defensive value – notes Milano Finanza – if we consider that the new CEO of CheBanca !, the commercial institute controlled by Mediobanca, is Marco Carreri, former CEO of Anima. And that Piazzetta Cuccia has for some time been interested in an important operation in the managed savings market that ensures constant flows of risk-free liquidity as opposed to bank loans. Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone has also recently entered this game, while he is moving his pawns between Piazzetta Cuccia and Generali, in fact at the beginning of May he rose to 3.192% of Anima.
Already in April, however, the Corriere della Sera in April wrote that a possible integration between Agricole and Bpm could pave the way for the acquisition of Anima by Amundi, an asset management company controlled by Agricole, which in 2016 had Pioneer already taken over by Unicredit, signing a distribution agreement that will expire in 2026.
The bank led by Maioli has always characterized its media activity under the banner of understatement, but in Italy it has been present and expanding for some time. The leap in quality (and quantity) compared to the embryonic phase of the presence on the Peninsula, that linked to the Cassa di Risparmio of Parma and Piacenza and to the Popolare Friuladria of Pordenone (it was 2007), to which CariSpezia was subsequently added, took place at the end of 2016, with the cash acquisition of Pioneer, the asset management sector of Unicredit, by the subsidiary Amundi in exchange for 3.5 billion euros.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/credit-agricole-si-pappera-anche-anima-con-amundi/ on Tue, 24 May 2022 10:58:52 +0000.