“Last year was outstanding for Amundi ETF,” reports Miriam Oucouc, Global Head of Marketing. Amundi’s ETF business achieved a 50 per cent organic growth, taking assets under management to EUR38 billion.
This figure represents over EUR10 billion in net new assets, meaning that the firm doubled its market share in terms of flows compared with 2016.
“We are proud to be one of the few top players in Europe to still be enjoying a significant growth phase in a very dynamic market,” she says.
“Emerging markets have been an outstanding success for us and it has been the case for over two years,” Oucouc (pictured) says. “Emerging market equities are now core portfolio allocation.”
“We noticed a few years back that European investors were under invested, now that they are increasing their positions, investors are naturally driven to our Emerging equities range that covers all flagship Emerging Market indices, through sizable funds and at a very competitive pricing.”
Amundi’s Emerging Markets ETF stream has over EUR8.4 billion in assets under management, and attracted a third of the asset class flows in Europe in 2017.
“When it comes to Emerging Markets, it’s very important to offer a comprehensive coverage from global to regional and local exposures as we do. We have been clever to position our global and regional Emerging Markets ETFs at a low-cost level a couple of years ago, offering them at only 20 bps.
“Due to this competitive positioning, the first flows back to Emerging markets were into our products driving automatically Amundi ETF MSCI Emerging Markets UCITS ETF in the first selection when searching Emerging equities ETFs. Moreover, our tracking error is very competitive, which is all the more essential when it comes to Emerging equities.”
A few years back, Amundi ETF decided to focus on Fixed Income and Smart Beta for innovation. “Our product development is focused on trying to find solutions to very concrete allocation needs in the Fixed Income field, not only multiplying different products.”
“Investors are looking for yield, but we believe it cannot be done at the expense of quality and liquidity. This is why we take great care of those criteria when launching new products. Our Floating Rate Notes ETF in US dollars was the second product in terms of overall net new inflows in Europe last year. The ETF business is part of a fully integrated business line, with a strong focus on Smart Beta, both on the passive and active sides.
“Our objective was to provide a full range of solutions. For the multi-factor ETF range, we partnered with Edhec Risk Institute Scientific Beta and developed investment tools that have met with strong success from investors.”
In 2017, Amundi also innovated with the launch of the Amundi ETF iSTOXX Europe Multi-Factor Market Neutral UCITS ETF, which was the first European market neutral multi-factor ETF.
“Up to now this kind of strategy was more hedge fund like, thus at a quite expensive pricing. Our solution was well received by clients in search for a decorrelation tool from market trends, as it is cost-efficient but also fully transparent, liquid and UCITS compliant.”
Looking forward, Amundi ETF plans further innovation focusing on expanding their Fixed Income range, and offering wrapped solutions for distributors based on ETFs.
“Our positive growth has been on the institutional side but we believe in the next year or so the retail community will catch up for sure, driven by product innovation and regulatory changes.”
