Amundi Asset Management has experienced a slowdown in retail inflows in Australia, as the manager's global fixed interest team in London continues to struggle with departures.
"At this time, yes, inflows have slowed, but there have been no outflows," Amundi Asset Management Australia chief executive Richard Borysiewicz said yesterday.
Amundi has lost four more members of its global fixed income team, after having already lost three, including chief executive and chief investment officer Bruno Crastes, in April this year.
These additional departures have caused a delay in the reinstatement of Amundi's global diversified fixed income fund rating, which is currently on hold.
"We were reviewing the fund's on hold status as part of our current international fixed interest sector review," S&P analyst David Erdonmez said yesterday.
"However, it is clear that we will need to wait for the dust to settle on these latest departures and for there to be a period of team continuity before we can re-address the fund's on hold status," he said.
The recent departures included global bond and currency portfolio manager Loïc Cadiou and global fixed income portfolio manager Carlos Galvis, who were both with the company since 2001.
The review of the global diversified fixed interest fund comes at an inconvenient time for Amundi Australia.
The manager is in the middle of rolling out its funds to the retail market, after having built up the required track record since its Australian launch in 2007, and the fixed interest fund is its flagship product.
"When you don't have a track record of three years you tend to be on a B-list, because there are competitor who have a longer track record and who have a stronger brand," Borysiewicz said.
"We are looking to get there. It takes between three and five years, and we had barely reached the three year mark, so we barely started the race," he said.
But Borysiewicz said that asset management is a long term business, and that its parent company remains committed to the Australian market.
"If you are a large asset manager you just need to be in Australia; it is not a question," he said.
Besides, Amundi is a diversified business and has seen strong interest in other part of the business.
"We've had institutional interest across a broad range of capabilities: global volatility, global fixed income, mortgages-backed securities and we are well-known for our equities capabilities," he said.
"We grew 80 per cent in assets under management (AUM) in the 12 months to March this year. This has been a solid business by any measures," he said.
Amundi Australia was formed after the asset management arms of Credit Agricole and Societe Generale merged in June this year, and the combined business has currently $2.5 billion in AUM.
Societe Generale's three staff members, including Societe Generale Asset Management managing director Phil Filippelis, decided not to join Amundi after its merger.
"As part of the merger the staff there chose to take redundancy from SocGen and not join Amundi," Borysiewicz said.
