Amundi Acquires Majority Stake in Kleinwort Benson Investors

Amundi, Oddo & Cie and Kleinwort Benson Investors (“KBI”) today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement whereby Amundi is to acquire an 87.5% stake in KBI from Oddo & Cie, while the management team of KBI will acquire a 12.5% stake.

KBI, a subsidiary of BHF Kleinwort Benson Group which was recently acquired by the Oddo group, is a fast-growing equity management firm, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland with offices in Boston and New York and employing 62 people. Its highly experienced investment team manages 7.6 billion euros of assets as of 31 March 2016, mainly across global equity capabilities. KBI has delivered an excellent performance track record over the years, and enjoyed dynamic growth of its assets under management over the past few years (CAGR 2011-15: +28%).

KBI’s clients are well diversified between institutional, subadvisory and third party distributors. The firm has developed successfully in North America which represents 52% of assets under management by client domicile, while Ireland and UK account together for 26%, Continental Europe 14% and Asia 8%.

In 2015 KBI posted net revenues of 31 million euros and a net income of 9 million euros.

Amundi and KBI are highly complementary in terms of product and geographic focus. KBI’s global equities expertise will strongly augment Amundi’s equity franchise. Likewise, KBI will leverage Amundi’s strong Retail and institutional presence in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The transaction benefits from the full support of KBI’s management team, who will hold a material stake in the company. Going forward KBI will retain its distribution, operating and portfolio management autonomy. Sean Hawkshaw will continue as Chief Executive Officer and Noel O’Halloran as Chief Investment Officer. All employees are expected to remain with the firm.

The transaction is fully in line with Amundi’s financial criteria for acquisitions: the deal will be immediately accretive to Amundi’s EPS and will comply with the target of an expected return on investment superior to 10% within three years.

In parallel with this transaction, Amundi and Oddo & Cie will strengthen their cooperation, namely via the cross selling of their investment expertise

Yves Perrier

Amundi's CEO

we are very pleased to add KBI as a new platform within Amundi Group. This acquisition is perfectly in line with Amundi’s strategy presented at the time of our recent IPO. It will strengthen our offer with a complementary and well-performing equity expertise, that will benefit our clients in Europe, Asia and the Middle-East.

Sean Hawkshaw

Chief Executive Officer of KBI Global Investors

Amundi is a highly regarded pure play asset manager and will be a solid long term partner for KBI. We are very excited about this next step in our growth. We believe that the combination of Amundi as a majority shareholder and a meaningful stake held by key employees offers an ideal ownership structure to continue to develop the firm while allowing us to deliver the best possible investment returns and service for our clients globally.