Many private banking clients, but also private bankers and wealth managers, travel throughout London, Zurich or Geneva, Hong Kong or Singapore, and to a certain degree also Dubai. These hubs are where you want to put your advertising stamp because that is where you need to be better known. You also need to be better known in markets where you focus on the more retail clients because their awareness makes a difference.
We were already pretty well known in our traditional space, and that is why we don’t really advertise there. There is a different way of getting your name across that’s much more about being available for the right events, sponsorship and so on.
You are not going to be in every newspaper around the world – it’s not doable – so you have to make certain decisions about what you want or, better, what you do not want to do, and I think we have done that.
How are Amundi’s fund flows going?
As at the end of June 2015, we have $1.1trn under management. Through our external distribution channel – the segment that includes the private banks, wealth managers and commercial or private banking departments – we’ve had a very good year so far, with a net inflow of more than €11bn ($11.7bn, £7.9bn), mainly across Europe and Asia.
You cannot see what’s coming out of the Middle East very much because often you have dealt via different banks and centres, so we miss some of the detail.
Can you give me a flavour of the product launches over the past year that have kept the momentum building in the market?
Let’s start with global fixed income. We have a fund called Global Aggregate, which is a global go-anywhere fixed-income product aimed at making sure we have positive returns for our clients with regards to the market circumstances.
That is becoming more difficult every day in the fixed-income world. However, what we have been able to do is attract some money because the private bankers and others like the fact that it is a go-anywhere solution.
In a very complex market, where you don’t even know where to go, you can have a product that is making these decisions for you, so you can concentrate on servicing your client.
That is why we’ve seen good growth into that fund. The other fund that did well was the First Eagle Amundi International Fund, which has a global equity asset allocation.
