Amundi is latest asset management giant to explore secondaries build-out

Europe’s largest asset manager wants to become the next institutional investor with an in-house secondaries team, Secondaries Investor has learned.

Paris-headquartered Amundi Asset Management has hired recruiters to scope out potential team members, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The team will be funded by Amundi’s insurance business Crédit Agricole Assurances, which fronts most of the capital for its existing fund of funds unit, said one of the sources.

Amundi is targeting €1 billion of secondaries capital under management by 2025. The compensation package is not likely to include carried interest, Secondaries Investor understands.

It is unclear whether the team would focus solely on private equity or other alternative asset classes, and a spokesperson for Amundi did not return requests for comment.

Amundi, which has €2.1 trillion in assets under management, is the only European asset manager to feature in the global top 10, the firm said in marketing materials from September.

In 2019, affiliate title Private Equity International reported that Amundi had €6.2 billion invested through its fund of funds business and €872 million in direct investments.

It intended to reach €10 billion overall by 2020 through building a third-party capital base and acquiring boutique investment managers, Pedro Arias, global head of alternative and real assets, said at the time.

It had €1 billion in assets via its minority investment strategy, Amundi Private Equity Funds, as of September, according to its website.

Amundi’s directs team makes investments of €10 million to €50 million in European companies benefitting from “megatrends” in technology, demographics, globalisation and other areas, according to its website. It came to market with Megatrends II in 2019 with a €350 million target, according to PEI data.

Amundi is one of several asset managers to explore tapping the secondaries market over the past 18 months. Firms that have achieved this by bringing in expertise, as opposed to acquiring a firm, include Brookfield Asset Management, Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets and Apollo Global Management.

– Adam Le contributed to this report