Today Amundi, the leading European asset manager, and CACEIS, the asset servicing banking group of Crédit Agricole and Santander, announce the strengthening of their strategic agreement to accelerate the development of Fund Channel, the B2B fund distribution platform.
CACEIS will purchase 33.33% of Fund Channel’s share capital while Amundi remains the majority shareholder.
Fund Channel is the fourth-largest European B2B fund platform, highly-rated by Platforum for its quality of service[1]. It offers access to over 600 fund managers and connects with more than 100 distributors in Europe and Asia.
CACEIS clients will benefit from the wide array of fund-distribution related services of a well-recognised leading platform. The partnership will enable Fund Channel’s clients to benefit from a fully-fledged execution services offering. In addition, the two partners will continue to expand their fruitful long-term cooperation in other growth areas of fund services and data.
This project is part of the 2025 Strategic Ambitions Plan recently announced by Amundi to investors in June 2022 with a target of more than €600 billion of assets intermediated by year-end 2025 for Fund Channel.
Fund Channel aims at capturing the major trends in the open-architecture distribution market in Europe, as distributors increasingly turn to outsourcing certain services in order to reduce costs, gain scale, and improve services for their clients. For the fifth consecutive year, fund distribution platforms have grown at a higher rate than the European fund market and now represent over 25 per cent of UCITS funds distributed[2].
The closing of the transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, subject to prior approval of the relevant regulatory authorities.
Valérie Baudson, CEO of Amundi, commented: “I am convinced that this industrial and commercial partnership will create value for both companies and for distributors, which are increasingly looking for services across the entire investment and savings value chain. It will also enhance Fund Channel's position as a major player in a fast-growing market.”
Jean-François Abadie , CEO of CACEIS added: “This joint venture will significantly boost Fund Channel’s profile as a fund distribution platform in Europe and Asia. By joining forces with Amundi, we have created a strategic partnership which enhances the fund distribution support offering of both CACEIS and Fund Channel, while meeting the demands of our current and future clients in the most efficient way.”
[1] Platforum’s 2022 report ranks Fund Channel best institutional platform in Europe (European Fund Distribution, May 2022)
[2] Ibid.
