I think we can start then. Everybody's in the room. Yes. Okay. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for coming to our head offices in London, Amundi's office. Thank you for those of you who are connected. This will be a hybrid presentation of our Q4 and full year 2024 results. I'm Cyril Meilland, the Head of Investor Relations. The speakers today will be Valérie Baudson, our CEO, and Nicolas Calcoen, our Deputy CEO. As usual, I have to remind you of a disclaimer that features in all our documents, in particular the parts related to Victory Capital and the partnership we announced last year, as well as the fact that those accounts are in process of being audited, even though we are pretty confident that they are accurate at this point.
Sorry about this, but that's the legal stuff. From a logistical standpoint, Valérie and Nicolas will present the results. It will be followed, as usual, by a Q&A session. For those of you who are connected, you can obviously ask a question. Please raise your hand virtually, so I can see that you want to ask a question. We will unmute your mic, and you will be able to ask your question. I will just ask you to put your camera on, so that the dialogue is a bit more lively. Without further ado, please, Valérie and Nicolas, start the presentation. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Cyril . Good morning to all those with us in the room. Thank you for being here, as well as those connected. I'm very pleased to be here to present our Q4 and full year 2024 results, and give you as well an update on our strategic plan, Ambitions 2025. I will go first through the main highlights of the year, and discuss our achievements in our strategic priorities and profitability targets so far, and then I will leave the floor to Nicolas before we take your questions. 2024, I'm sure you read the press release this morning, was a record year for Amundi, both in terms of commercial activity and financial results. First, this is the most important, our clients have entrusted us with an additional EUR 55 billion to manage.
These inflows are more than double those gathered in 2023. They are positive both in active and passive management. Last but not least, all client segments, retail and institutionals, contributed to these record inflows. I think this is a proof that we've been able to support all our client needs with high-performance solutions adapted to market conditions. Our assets, of course, under management exceeded 2.2 trillion, rising by 10% over the year. Another record. Now, turning to our profitability. Our annual adjusted net profit reached EUR 1.4 billion and grew by 13%. It's never been that high, and this is also the case for the very good quarterly profit at EUR 377 million exactly.
As you can see, our revenues increased by 9%, driven by net management fees, and we improved once again our operational efficiency, and our cost income ratio is better than our target of 53%. It is at 52.5% exactly. These results will allow us to propose to our shareholders an increased dividend of EUR 4.25 per share, which represents a yield of more than 6%. Finally, 2024 is a major milestone in the journey of our strategic plan. We are proud to have reached several key targets ahead, one year ahead of schedules. Not to forget, of course, our financial results that are all on track. As you know, 2024 was also very active in M&A.
We signed three value-creating deals that will accelerate our development. I'm gonna go through all this in the coming slides. I wanted to start with the three external growth operations I just mentioned. First, you remember that the acquisition of Alpha Associates, which strengthens our capabilities in private markets, particularly in multi-management of private debt, infrastructure, and private equity. Very important for the growth of the wealth market today. Second, we have signed a partnership with Victory Capital to reinforce our U.S. expertises. This transaction is expected to close around the end of the first quarter 2025 or early Q2. Finally, we acquired a German wealth tech company, aixigo, which will allow us to accelerate the deployment of digital solutions to our distributors in Europe and in Asia.
These three operations are, as you can see that on the screen, will boost our growth with a return of investment, which is completely online with our financial guidance. Return of investment of more than 12%, sorry, by 2027. The guidance is 10, the operations will be 12. 2024 was also a year of success in all the mega trends of the industry that will drive Amundi's future growth. Let's start with Asia. We developed a lot in Asia to capture the huge potential of this region. It's important to note that this year our inflows are more important in Asia than in the rest of the world. Our assets under management are close to EUR 500 billion now, thanks to very healthy net inflows in 2024, coming from all client segments and all countries.
Of course, our JVs gathered, as usual, a very nice amount of money, EUR 23 billion exactly in net new assets. By the way, the net contribution of our Indian JV with SBI, which you know is the most important and fast-growing one, is now above EUR 100 million, the contribution to the result of Amundi, which is a symbol and a key milestone. We also grew in direct distribution in all countries, with more than EUR 5 billion inflows in 2024. I wanted to take an example of the great partnerships we can manage to build in the region. This example is with Standard Chartered.
This partnership allowed us to gather more than EUR 2 billion with a multi-asset solutions dedicated to their clients we have deployed for them in 11 markets. By the way, mostly in Asia, but not only, also in Middle East and Africa. It's typically the kind of thing we can do today in Asia with very important players and which is driving our growth. In 2024, Amundi's fixed income powerhouse also played a major role in the strong commercial momentum. You may remember that in 2023, we had become the number one player in target maturity funds while gathering a lot of assets in treasury products, one of our key strengths.
In 2024, we expanded this success in the fixed income space, and our strong net inflows came from a broader range of strategies, from short-term bonds to flagship bond products like Euro Credit, global aggregate, and, of course, the insurers buy and maintain investment strategy. Finally, we continue to strengthen our leadership position as a tech player, which is, as you know, an important growth driver for us. Amundi Technology enjoyed, again, strong organic growth, reaching 82 clients by the end of 2024 and a growth of 34%. Now it has become a significant contributor to the group's development, with EUR 80 million revenues, close to EUR 100 million if we had integrated aixigo at the beginning, at the start of the year. A fast top line and client growth for Amundi Technology.
Now, let's take a look at two other growth drivers that have achieved the goals we set out in our plan ahead of schedule. Third-party distribution first. 2024 was a record year. Assets under management now exceed EUR 400 billion, rising by more than 25% compared to 2023, definitely qualifying us as a reference partner for all distributors in open architectures. This client segment now accounts for more than 57% exactly of total retail assets. I wanted to highlight specifically our successes with the new player in this market, namely the online banks and the digital platforms, because they are growing much faster than the traditional distributors. We managed to gather with them EUR 6 billion in 2024.
We have developed, I think we never told you that, we have developed globally 40 partnerships in Europe and Asia with digital banks or platforms, of which 12 were signed in 2024. We're making an extra effort with all these players which are growing very fast and which will contribute significantly to our growth in the future. Turning to passive management, we consolidated our position as the European number one ETF provider, of course, with record inflows of EUR 28 billion in these market segments. These inflows cover a broad range of products. U.S. and global equities this year were clearly in focus, and we were very successful with our S&P 500 ETF, but also with new innovative products.
I mean, Lyxor integration is completely behind us now. We are totally focusing on innovation and development. Let me take you two example, a dedicated ETF on U.S. market, excluding mega cap that we launched recently, or another ETF on a highly diversified exposure to developed and emerging markets, which gathered more than EUR 2 billion since its creation nine months ago. They can be very, very significant and rapid. Last but not least, we are now also presenting the activity of space, which is the launch of a product based on the French responsible investment label since the beginning of the quarter. At the end of the day, 2024 has been a very successful journey.
We had a successful journey since 2022 and the launch of our strategic plan. This is what this slide is showing. We exceeded the growth targets we had set in terms of financial performance and results. We achieved this thanks to the growth in our revenues, of course. Our net income has grown by more than 6% per year on average between 2021 and 2024, compared to the objective you remember of 5% in the plan. EUR 1.382 billion exactly, of course, we almost reached a EUR 1.4 billion goal set for 2025, so one year in advance. Even restating for the very small positive capital market effect compared to 2021, we still exceed the target growth.
Of course, you see that we are always very efficient from an operational point of view. The goal obviously is that our productivity gains allow us to finance all our investments. Our cost income ratio is the reflection of this. We have maintained, I was mentioning this in introduction, a best in class ratio of 52.5% below our target. I think that what we can say is that having maintained this very high operating efficiency in the inflationary environment we lived of the past years demonstrate the agility of Amundi's business model. The rest of the scorecard illustrates our value-creating allocation of resources. The dividend increases in 2024 at EUR 4.25, which results in a payout ratio of 67%.
This is again above the 65% minimum target of the plan. Over the three-year period, we have materially exceeded this minimum with an average payout of 62%, representing EUR 2.5 billion in dividends. Combined with the acquisition we have made, this corresponds to surplus capital usage of EUR 0.7 billion. Today, our capital, our excess capital is around EUR 1 billion, and of course we will generate further surplus capital before the end of 2025. [Non-English content] In conclusion, considering where we stand, we are well-positioned to find new opportunities and value-creating deal. Thank you very much for your attention, and I leave the floor to Nicolas for some more details on the quarter and the year.
Thank you, Valérie, good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be with you in London today. As usual, I will start with a few complementary data on activity. As you can see, as Valérie indicated, our asset under management reach an all-time high in 2024, more than EUR 2.2 trillion, which is an increase by 2% over the quarter on an increase by 10% over one year.
This good, this significant increase in our assets under management was driven, of course, by first positive market effect linked to the increase mainly in the equity indexes, around EUR 140 billion over the year of positive market effect, but also a very strong positive momentum in term of activity and flows, EUR 55 billion of positive flows over the year. Moving to a little bit more detail on this net inflows. As Valérie indicated, this EUR 55 billion means more than doubling compared to 2023. What also is interesting is that the structure of this inflows, as you can see, is much more favorable. In 2023, net inflows came mostly from our Asian joint ventures and from treasury products.
On the contrary, in 2024, medium to long-term assets represented the majority of the net inflows, and almost equally balanced between passive and active management. One was restated from the large exit from a low margin insurance mandate that we mentioned over the third quarter. This trend is even more true if you look at the fourth quarter, where we gathered close to EUR 18 billion in long-term assets. Unlike for the full year, active management was positive at more than EUR 5 billion. ETF posted record net inflows at more than EUR 10 billion over this quarter. Moving to the following slide. As you can see, like in the previous quarter, this activity was underpinned by our very solid investment management performance.
Approximately 70% of our open-ended funds were in the first and second quarter over one year, over three years, and over five years, with, by the way, a remarkable stability over time. Close to 250 of our funds are rated four or five stars. And finally, 80% of our assets under management outperformed their benchmark over five years. Once again, I would like to highlight that these KPIs have been very consistent quarter after quarter, which demonstrate all we do to work to maintain a sustainable high level of performance to earn and keep the trust of our clients. Looking now at the activity according to our various client segments, I will start with retail. 2024, as you can see, was a very good year for this segment.
Net inflows were almost four times as high as in 2023, at close to EUR 27 billion overall, almost half of the group's total inflows of EUR 55 billion. As Valérie said, this was largely driven by record inflows in third-party distribution, where we compete in open architecture with other asset managers, and where probably clients are more eager to participate in a more bullish market. This net inflow was very much diversified across all geographies, Europe, Asia, U.S., and within all of these regions, almost all countries posting positive flows with third-party distributors. Very well-diversified also in terms of expertise, active management, passive management, including ETF and also treasury products.
On the other side, risk aversions remain high in partner networks, both in France and abroad, and the high level of sales for structured product, for example, in UniCredit or Sabadell Networks, usually with capital guarantees reflect this caution. If you look at the fourth quarter, we posted net inflows of more than EUR 11 billion, more than 40% of the total flows for the year, with basically the same mix by segment. Again, third-party distributors posted record flows with close to EUR 13 billion during this quarter. Again, very well-balanced between ETF, active management and treasury products, and well-balanced across all our geographies. Moving now to the institutional business. I would like to stress here the very high level of net inflows in medium to long-term assets, we...
which was driven by all client segments. In total, we posted EUR 34 billion of inflows in long-term assets if you exclude the exit from the insurance mandate I mentioned earlier. EUR 34 billion of inflows in long-term assets and the lion's share of these inflows was, in fact, in active management and in particular fixed income strategies. They partially benefited from transfer from several institutions which moved from treasury products to longer bond fixed income products. This, by the way, explains the outflows from treasury products, which were partially offset by good inflows with corporate clients. Basically, I won't be long on that. On the first quarter, the trends were exactly the same, very strong positive flows in long-term assets.
Finally, turning to our Asian joint venture, they collected more than EUR 23 billion in 2024 and close to EUR 2 billion on the last quarter. Flows were driven mainly by our largest joint venture, SBI MF in India, with more than EUR 20 billion over the year. Even if it's to a lesser extent, by the other JVs, in particular, NongHyup Amundi, our JV in Korea. ABC-CA posted also net positive flows in open and in mutual funds in both, full year 2024 and the last quarter, but they were partially offset by outflows in the discontinued, very low-margin channel business. You might recall that we announced approximately one year ago that we would expect a request for proposal to be launched and to result in major outflows from our Indian JV.
In fact, this RFP was related to a very large mandate, our JV managed on behalf of local pension funds, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation, EPFO. This RFP, which was expected, was launched in January, so we should expect large outflows with this JV in the second or the third quarter. We just wanted to reiterate that this will have a very marginal impact on our joint venture revenues because it's a very low margin, and a totally negligible one on Amundi net income. Let's move now to our financial results on page 18 and start it, of course, with the revenues.
During the full year, during the quarter, sorry, our revenues reached EUR 924 million, which is up by 15% compared to the first quarter of 2023, and was driven both by the high level of activity and favorable markets. In particular, net management fees were up by 9% on a year-on-year basis. Performance fees were up by 68%, reaching EUR 57 million. As I mentioned earlier, our investment teams delivered a very high level of performance last year, and this, of course, translated into high performance fees, both during the year and the last quarter across a very diversified set of strategies.
Technology revenues grew, sorry, by 47%, to EUR 26 million during this quarter, reflecting, like in previous quarters, a very healthy organic growth, thanks to the new clients we regularly onboard, but also on this quarter seeing an integration of aixigo starting in November. Finally, the decrease in net financial income compared to the fourth quarter is due to the lower interest rates. Moving to slide 19. This revenue growth was complemented by a good operating efficiency, resulting in a positive jaws effect, with cost increasing by 13% versus revenues by 15%. During this fourth quarter, costs were driven to a large extent by four elements. The first one is the consolidation of Alpha Associates since the second quarter on aixigo, as I mentioned over the last months of the year.
Second, the accelerated investment, in our strategic priorities, in particular technology, but also in Asia, for example. Third element is the increase in bonuses related to the growth in revenues and operating profit. Finally, specifically for this fourth quarter, a few one-off items, mainly one that we, by the way, announced a few months ago, the charge related to the capital increase, which is reserved to employees. In 2024, it was recording in the fourth quarter, whereas in last year, in 2023, it was in the third quarter, and this impact on the quarterly data. Taken together, these four items represented more than 80% of the cost growth. This leaves the remaining cost growth of 2.5 percentage points, very limited and corresponding to the underlying inflation.
As a consequence, our best-in-class cost income ratio stood at 52.1%, which is 0.7 percentage point better than the same period in 2023, and obviously below our 2025 targets. This lead us to our adjusted net income. Our gross operating profit on the fourth quarter increased by more than 16%, thanks to this very healthy growth in revenues on the controlled cost. In addition, the contribution from our joint venture was up by 1.6% compared to fourth quarter. It can be noticed that it was a bit below the fast pace that we have been accustomed to over the recent quarters.
This is in fact entirely due to the negative mark-to-market effect in the annual account portfolio of the JV, which is due to the drop in Indian equity markets during this fourth quarter. In total, our adjusted net income is up by more than 20% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, and we reached EUR 377 million. This is the highest quarterly net income we ever booked. Let's turn to our performance for the full year. As you will see, starting with the revenue, the trends are very similar, and the first quarter overall is in fact the accelerated version of the full year. On the revenue side, our revenues grew by 9%, and they grew coming from all sources. Main one being obviously management fees.
They grew by 8.3%, fully in line with the growth of our asset under management. Performance fees were at a good level, EUR 145 million, which is up by 18% compared to last year, thanks to the good investment performance I mentioned earlier. One additional point maybe to keep in mind regarding performance fees, it's true for the year, and by the way, it's true for the quarter, they were very diversified across markets, across asset classes, and across strategies. Fixed income stood up with a bit more than half of the performance fees coming from Euro Credit and debt, emerging market, U.S. fixed income, et cetera, but not a single fund represent more than 5% of total performance fees. Moving to technology revenues, they grew also by 34% to EUR 80 million.
This, as I mentioned, include aixigo for the last quarter. As Valérie mentioned, if we had integrated aixigo over the full year, total revenues from technology would have reached close to EUR 100 million. It's clearly an important milestone for the development of this new business. Finally, financial income. Contrary to what I've just said about the first quarter, if you look at the full year, they indeed grew versus 2023, because the rate cost only started in the eurozone in June last year. In fact, average short-term rates were in 2024, slightly higher than 2023. A word maybe about margins. As I said earlier, management fees grew at the same level as the average asset under management. Our margins were flat at 17.7 basis points.
This good result in an industry where margins are structurally under pressure is a result of contrasting trends for Amundi between market moves, client mix, and products mix. I think here that the key message is that Amundi's very diversified business model, and its inflows coming from all client segments, asset classes, and management types, underpins our margin resilience. Turning now to cost on the following page. The same jaws effect that I mentioned regarding the fourth quarter resulted in the same improvement of our cost-income ratio, if you look at the full year. At 52.5%, this ratio puts us at the best level of the industry, and already reaches the target of our plan 2025, one year earlier.
We are also close to being one year earlier for the net income on the following slide. Thanks to a growth of 13%, the net income reached EUR 1,382 million, sorry, the highest level in Amundi's history, and very close to the EUR 1.4 billion target we had put for next year. Let me detail a little bit on the performance over the period on this slide. As you can see, not only are we above the gross target of 5% per annum, at constant market, we have remained above the gross trajectory we had set over the whole period, even in the context of high risk aversion and inflation over the past three years, in particular 2022 and 2023.
Our net income has grown by more than 6% per year on average during the period, compared to an objective of 5%. Even restated from the small positive capital market effect between 2021 and 2024, we still exceed the target growth. I think that we can agree that the asset management industry as a whole has not been booming as the capital market would suggest in the recent period, which with a high level of risk aversion and negative margin mix during this period. We can consider that delivering on the profit growth target in this context is a remarkable achievement.
To conclude with this presentation of our activity and result in fourth quarter, I would say that the key takeaway I would keep in mind is growth coming from a very high level of net flows, very diversified, driven by our growth pillar, and with a good mix between long-term assets, treasury product, passive and active, direct distribution, and joint venture. A very healthy top line amplified by our cost efficiency on the growth of our joint ventures. Before leaving the floor to Amundi, just wanted to mention also the-
To, to Valerie. To Valerie.
Well, I just said it.
Amundi.
No.
I'm a little bit of Amundi as well.
Just a very short word about our financial position, remaining very strong, EUR 4.5 billion of tangible equity, slightly above EUR 1 billion of excess capital, which allow us to propose to our general assembly in next May, a dividend of EUR 4.25, which represent a payout ratio of 67% on the yield based on last week stock price, slightly above 6%. Valérie, I hand it to you.
Thank you, Nicolas. To conclude this presentation, I would like once again, of course, to highlight our strong performance in 2024. It was a record year for Amundi in terms of activity and profitability, and I would like to thank the teams in the room, but who are listening to our conf call for what they've done. Of course, thank our clients for their trust. 2024 is a very significant milestone for us because we have reached many of our strategic targets set initially for 2025, and because we have truly accelerated our diversification. All these achievements put us in an ideal position to take advantage of the mega-trends of the asset management industry and will boost our future growth.
This new stronger profile allows me to remain very confident in our ability to continue to create value for our clients and for our shareholders. We are now at your disposal for any question. You have a lot.
Thank you, Valérie. Thank you, Nicolas. Yes, there's quite a lot of questions. Sorry, I didn't see who started. Let's take them in row. Nick from Citigroup.
Yes. Hello. It's Nicholas Herman from Citi. Thanks for the presentation, taking my questions. Actually, I'll also add a thank you for the added disclosure of the data pack from this quarter. That was actually very helpful.
Three questions for me, please. One on third party. An interesting update on the digital partnerships in that segment. I just like a couple of things, I guess. Signing 12 new partnerships in one year seems like pretty solid momentum. I guess could you give us some context around that number from prior years? How would you describe the pipeline for further partnerships? I guess a related question actually is, like, those digital players comprise about 20% of your third-party flows of the EUR 32 billion.
Yeah.
Just of the other 80%, which clients regionally, perhaps were the main drivers of the other 80% as well? I'd be interested if you could provide some color there. A second question on your costs and cost framework. You noted the uptick in strategic investment spend. I guess given you are ahead of your plan and tracking ahead of your profitability targets, presumably it's fair to say that you've now earned the right to invest a bit more than originally planned, given the additional buffer that you've now generated. Then a final question on M&A. You were recently linked to Generali, AGI, and we've seen a notable pickup, I guess, Generali in global asset management M&A. It seems plausible that could accelerate further.
What opportunities do you see in the market today, and I guess what probability would you assign to Amundi deploying the EUR 1 billion-plus of surplus capital prior to the 2026 AGM, I guess particularly in the context that you said that you would return it if you cannot spend it? Thank you.
Very precise questions. Thank you very much. I would start with the third-party distribution. The digital players. I really wanted to stress that point because it's, as you mentioned, it's significant in our inflows today. You know very much that our strategy is diversifying as much as possible our book of business in the retail area to make our book of business on the, on the retail and wealth side grow very fast worldwide. Obviously, there is a turning point in 2024 in the, in the, in the footprint of all these digital players in the investment industry, especially in Europe.
What we saw between 2021 and 2023 was very concentrated in if I speak about Europe, very concentrated in Germany, where we saw digital platforms booming after the COVID, but not so much in other countries. It was more shy. What we saw in 2024 was really an acceleration everywhere. We have a dedicated team at a global level and also at local levels, who are covering these specific clients who actually do not request the same type of service that the requests required by traditional banks. It's very different. It's a lot of marketing, very digital marketing. It has to be completely STP in terms of service to the final retail client.
What we have to deliver is what the asset manager has to deliver is not only dedicated saving solutions, but also dedicated service around that. When we manage to partner with them, it's very efficient because I mean, they are very efficient guys. They do not partner with billions of asset managers. They want one, two, three maximum. When we manage to partner with them, we make a lot of business with them. I just wanted to share that with you because I think it's now incredibly significant in our industry. Being able to partner with these new digital players is gonna be a winning exercise. We're putting a lot of focus on it.
We did accelerate the teams dedicated to these clients and the service we deliver to them. Being a company very focused on technology and services is helping us a lot because we have the teams, we have the service, we have the digital platforms which help us convince them. To answer to your questions about the clients and country, honestly, it's true everywhere. True everywhere. Obviously, not only in Europe and Asia. We're working on both sides. I'm gonna let you answer on the cost side, and I'll come back on the M&A.
On the cost side, well, the question was, what type of investment we did or.
Have you earned the right to spend more on your investments?
Oh, okay. I think globally is investment we are making and which are really driven by the strategic priorities we defined. The three first one in term of investment is technology, both side, by the way, for what we need to do to answer the, to allow the development of new business with external clients and what we need to do to improve constantly our processes, our tools. It's really the priority. The other ones are the development in Asia, the reinforcement in third-party distribution, passive management. All this is completely consistent with the plan. Obviously, we are very careful in the way we manage the company, and we manage the cost. We adapt from time to time the pace to take into account the global context.
We do it in term of planning the investment as we do it in term of managing the cost productivity, cost effort, review of processes that we regularly do to ensure that we keep this very high level of efficiency and this capacity to invest in the long run.
Maybe just to illustrate what Nicolas is saying, this is really the way we are managing the company. On the example I was mentioning on the digital banks, we had not planned to dedicate a specific team on that topic until the beginning of 2024, and we decided to build one very quickly in 2024 for that reason. On the active ETFs, we launched early Q4. We accelerated the topic because we wanted to be able to launch them quickly. On some other topics, if we feel it will not deliver quickly enough, we can be a bit less rapid.
We, we always want and always stay very agile to make sure that we invest, not only in the long trends, the long trends we see them and we're focused on them, but also on short trends then we want to catch absolutely. The fact to be the first in this industry is really important, you know that. Once again, typically the digital players, you have to be in now. That's what we do. On the, on the M&A, on the M&A side, I'm gonna tell you what I always say. We focus first on the strategy, the client interests, and the fact that what we do in terms of M&A accelerates our growth. We look into all directions. Typically, what we've done in 2024 is an evidence of that.
We made one acquisition in private assets, one acquisition in technology, one M&A deal on the U.S. because all the planets were aligned to make it work on these three various topics. We're looking at any files possible, available ideas, not restricting any or sign on anything. We always focus on our guidelines that we communicate to you and that we will go on following. It has to be strategic, useful for our clients, financially, offer return on investment over 10%, and good in terms of execution. We need to feel comfortable with the fact to be able to execute properly any M&A deal. We've always done that. We always promise to you that if we entered into M&A, we will do it properly. It's really important for us.
When the planets are aligned, we're here.
Thank you, Val. Thank you, Nic. Arnaud is next.
Good morning. It's Arnaud Giblat from Exane BNP Paribas. Three questions, please. First, on private assets, on ETFs and on technology. On private assets, could you talk a bit about the outlook? On the one hand, you've got real estate assets which have been virtually gated. I mean, it's very hard to take your money out of SCPIs. Probably the outlook there is challenging. On the other side, you've got opportunities to launch ELTIFs or leverage Alpha Associates.
Mm-hmm.
How do you see the flow picture there shape up in those in that context? My second question is on ETFs. I looked at your core ETF offering in U.S. equities. They don't seem to be available on digital platforms in Europe, so I'm assuming that these are institutional flows. If so, could you maybe quantify how much retail ETF flows you are seeing classified as retail and what margin? Because it's quite hard to understand how it splits between institutional and retail. My third question is on technology. Could you update us on your timeframe to which you're looking to achieve EUR 150 million of revenues, if that's still a target? Thank you.
Well, on private asset and real estate, of course, I will not tell you anything new. The only thing we see is that the real estate market is still slightly decreasing, but less and less. We feel we're close to the end of the decrease of this market. Probably not early 2025, of course, but at least, I think we have seen most of this decrease. As usual, as forever, the real estate market will grow afterwards.
What is really, I think what the most important trend I see in the private assets globally today, and on which I think we really can benefit, Amundi can benefit, for the next, when I look at the next five years, is the fact that retirement solutions are transformed everywhere. We see more and more retirement demands and that private assets will enter more and more in these retirement solutions and in wealth solutions. As you know it well, over the past 10 years, private assets have been really mostly used by institutional clients. This is really starting in the wealth and in the retirement solutions for the retail clients. We had this discussion with some of you, I remember, during our dinner.
I, what I really want is to make sure that Amundi is part of this growth in the future. That's, that was the whole point of Alpha Associates. For these kind of clients, what you need is diversified solutions, clever solutions that they can keep for the long run in their portfolios. Typically, an actor like Alpha Associates is incredibly efficient for these kind of solutions. We're seeing that in a number of countries. I'm just taking the example of France, where obviously we have a strong market share.
There was last year the very beginning of what we call the Loi Industrie Verte, the Green Industry Law, where we have to, it's by law, we have to put a share of private assets in the retirement solutions for French individual investors. This is just starting, we built the solutions last year. They will be on the market next year. We know that when it's started, it's for the long run. That's. This is true with the ELTIF you were mentioning as well, which are just starting as well, but we already have two on the market. We are developing evergreen solutions for wealth clients.
We want to be part of this future growth in Europe and in Asia as well. We will play the game for that. That's for the private assets. On the ETF one, on the pure S&P 500, if you looked at it, Arnaud, there is a huge competition on the pricing, but you will. I can tell you that we will when I don't have the exact figure, maybe Nicolas or someone in the room have the exact figure. Obviously in the ETF SRI, most of the assets have flown on U.S. ETFs for obvious reasons, market trends this year, and we clearly benefited from that. I'm super confident that everything we are launching is incredibly good.
When you speak about institutional clients, Arno, it's actually mostly portfolio managers, multi-asset managers who can work within banks, within independent asset managers, within insurers, et cetera, who invest themselves for the interest of the final retail clients. At the end, it's of course for retail clients, but it's either packaged by asset managers in their own portfolio, and it's still, I don't have the exact figure, but I would say it's still 70%- 80% of the flows. We could check. I need to check to be precise, [Foreign language]. Direct retail clients investing in ETF, and I'm speaking here about Europe, of course, it's still a minority. It's around 20% to 30% maximum, huh. This is the [Foreign language], as we say.
Pure institutional, like there is.
Interestingly, pure institutional, we can see big tickets with some insurers and surprisingly with some central banks. More surprisingly with some central banks. We have big, large central banks who are investing widely into ETFs. It's a limited number of actors, but there can be big tickets as well. Technology, I cannot give you the exact date. What I can tell you is that building this business, transforming this internal business into an external business with a sales team, support teams, implementing teams, et cetera, has been a huge work, and this job is done now. I'm really, really confident that we can accelerate our growth.
We managed to onboard clients in Europe but also in Asia, which shows the capacity of the team to work worldwide, which shows also the fact that the solution can be used worldwide, at least for the asset management one. In terms of growth, what I'm very confident in the short future is the wealth growth as well. Why? Because all the traditional banks today, for digital reasons, because they transform themselves, for regulatory reasons, have to be much more efficient in delivering advisory and investment solutions to their end clients. They need help on that front. Our ALTO wealth solutions with aixigo, very unique capacities, will be a source of growth in the future.
aixigo in that regard is really a reinforcement on What is impressive, the first time I see that we made the acquisition of aixigo.
Right
We were already presenting their capabilities to clients.
The number of clients we spoke with around these solutions over the last three months is impressive. I'm confident in the development of this structure now. Really.
Michael was next. Michael Werner from UBS.
Thank you. Two questions from me, please. First, on the institutional business, we saw, I think the fee margin you show in the appendix is around 10.6 basis points for the full year. That's up quite considerably from the 10.3 basis points that we saw in the first half. I was just wondering if you could give us a little bit of color with regards to what's driving that. Second, with regards to the tax rate, my numbers say this is kind of the lowest tax rate that we have seen on a quarterly basis in some time. I was just wondering if there's anything going on there. I know we had, you know, the former French government, you know, proposed that tax rate.
I was just wondering if anything was related to that. Thank you.
I'm gonna let you answer.
On the insurance side, indeed, we have a slight increase in the margin for the year compared to last year and probably on the quarter, on the second half of the year. This is due to, if you compare to 2023, two elements, the fact that there was a significant exit, insurance mandate I mentioned on the third quarter, which was at a lower margin. Marginally, you also have the fact that, due to the increase in interest rate, the margin on treasury products, that is a relatively significant part, even minority part of the business, margin slightly increased compared to 2023.
Is it also the reason, you mentioned during the presentation where, some of our insurer ask us to transfer their money market assets to a more.
There's a business mix on 2024.
... more active, bond, solution. It's an addition of the three factors.
Do you expect that, you know, push away from treasury more towards fixed income products? Do you expect that to continue in 2025 or?
I would tend to imagine that's what they would like to do. They have constraints as well. You know, managing the assets of insurer is complicated. Normally, that's what they should do.
Your, your question on the tax rates in the fourth quarter, there's a few end of year exceptional elements, positive exceptional elements that explain the relatively low tax rates just for the quarter. It's not linked to the discussions around the budget.
Hubert.
Hi, good morning. It's Hubert Lam from Bank of America. I got 3 questions. Firstly, on your network, banking network, flows in there, particularly in medium long-term assets, still remain quite subdued, particularly against the very strong growth you're seeing in third party and institutional. Just wondering, what's the difference between the channels? Why is it taking much longer to re-risk there? The first question. A second question is on private markets. You stressed the importance of having private markets in retirement solutions, but if you look at your alternatives, AUM today is only 3% of your AUM. What's your target for getting that higher? Do you have the existing capabilities to do that, or do you need to grow, inorganic growth to get that percentage higher? Last question is on targets.
You talked about how you've achieved your targets earlier, particularly around 5% growth and the cost income ratio. If you look into the next cycle, do you expect these targets to be higher going forward? Thank you.
On the networks, well, it's a question of math. I mean, we are starting from a much higher point. The capacity, when we speak about the partner networks, we speak about the 4 or 5 banks with whom we have very dedicated, strong partnerships. By definition, our market share is already very high, so our capacity to grow is not as high as it is in the 600 other partners and clients we are working with, let's say. That's the starting point. The second point, probably. No, it's not even true. What we've seen with these partners, what I was mentioning, it depends on whom and when and where.
One thing we've seen is that, and we look at in with these partners, is that they have very, they have end clients who are globally not taking too much risk. What we managed to do with them, so the development of ETF, the development of equity, the development of private assets can be less rapid within these networks than it is with some other banks. That's why with them, what we do, once again, with the client interest in mind all the time, is to develop solutions which are most of the time protected solutions, which were very successful this year. Typically the example we had last year with the bond topic.
Honestly, the main reason is the fact that we are not starting with the same starting point. It's as simple as that. The capacity to develop and to grow is obviously less important than it is for the rest of the world, for us. That's why we're putting so much effort in the rest of the world, because it's much wider and much larger. On the private markets, for the time being, we have what we need to answer the needs. It's like anything else. I never exclude. I mean, we're always very concentrated on organic growth, but I never exclude external growth.
Once again, it will depend on whether the planets are aligned or not in terms of capacities, price and execution, possibility. To answer the trend of the wealth trends and the retirement trends I was mentioning, we have what we need for the time being. On the targets, Nicolas, you will say that, I know what is the answer, but I let you do it.
No, we have our target for 2025. We keep the target for 2025.
The medium-term plan is ending at the end of the year.
At the end.
You will have news soon.
Bruce Hamilton from Morgan Stanley.
Hey, yep, thanks. Just maybe on sort of ETF and active ETF. In terms of the kind of scale of ambitions with active ETFs, what's the size of AUM now? In terms of the opportunities, is that mostly through the kind of digital channels you were talking about, or is it more broad than that? In terms of the margin uplift, maybe just to understand what sort of fee rates. I guess, I think you kind of answered it with Arnaud's question, but on the passive side, the moves by Vanguard, does that represent a risk to any of your pure passive ETF businesses? Should we expect pricing compression to pick up in that line? Then a final question on Italy, 'cause no one's asked it.
I don't know what, if anything, you can say, but it certainly sounds from the press as though we're moving towards perhaps something being announced, you know, first half of this year, and it sounds like it could be a better outcome. Anything you can share there in terms of the most recent conversations with your key Italian partner? Thank you.
On Italy, as you can imagine, I will Bruce, I will not give you any as usual, additional details because we've never commented discussions we have. The only thing I can tell, which is in the press that you read, is that our relationship with UniCredit are very good and confirmed by all the figures I gave you when we had dinner together. Everything we do every day with them and also thanks to what the CEO of UniCredit confirmed, is that what we do for them is very high quality, and they do appreciate the service we deliver. On the ETF and the active ETFs, once again, let's go back to clients and client needs.
With, I think, a difference between the U.S. market and the European market. First of all, the active ETF market will grow. I should start for sure. The reasons why it has grown in the U.S. is twofold. The first one is the fact that it's a way to deliver the same type of strategy in a much cheaper way for some active managers. You know it perfectly, active funds are much more expensive in the U.S. than in Europe. It probably accelerated significantly the growth of active ETF in the U.S. I'm not saying it will accelerate differently in Europe, but it's not as significant as it is in the U.S. Second, and this is a big difference, in the U.S., the ETF is a tax-efficient envelope, which is not.
it is not in Europe. To make it clear and simple, the growth of ETFs in Europe, in my opinion, will be clearly mostly passive, in the next three years. It doesn't mean it will not grow on the active side, and it can be very efficient, on some topic in the active side, typically taking the client's interest. We developed our first active ETFs, on what we call the Label ISR in France, where we used, I would say, passive ETF on which we applied, responsible, guidelines from the French lab, which is typically a super clever way to use an active ETF on.
It's using the advantage of an ETF and adding the advantage of what we can add as an active manager on a product on which we know there will be a demand for sure. I think this is typically a good idea. There will be others. I mean, we now have very dedicated teams looking at everything we do at Amundi and checking what kind of active ETF could be really interesting for the end clients at the end of the day, and we will participate to the growth. Never forget that the ETF in Europe does not have this tax envelope advantage, which is a big driver in Europe and less in the U.S., sorry, and less in Europe. Vanguard topic, it's typically U.S. topic for the time being.
I think that is, answers all your question.
Okay. Angeliki from JP Morgan.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. It is Angeliki Bairaktari from JP Morgan. First of all, if we can come back to the digital platforms that you mentioned, can you give us some color outside of Germany that you said has been developing really well over the past few years in France, Italy, and Spain, where typically, if I am not mistaken, distribution is taking place through banks, at least until now. What share of retail is now done via platforms? I am just trying to figure out whether that is sort of a growing distribution channel both for you and the industry overall. Secondly,
Sorry, Angeliki. When you mean share of retail, on the ETF specifically or-
No, also everything.
Globally?
Yes. Secondly, on consolidation, since we last spoke, there was another deal announcement, very big deal in Europe, Generali combining its investment management operations with Natixis Investment Managers. Can you give us your thoughts on this deal? Could it lead to higher competitive pressure for Amundi, whether that's in Italy, whether that's in insurance channels or in France? Third question, there was an opinion piece by Ursula von der Leyen and Christine Lagarde in the FT last week talking about a plan for a Savings and Investments Union in Europe. What could this look like, and have you considered potential implications for the industry? Thank you.
Okay. Just on Generali, can you remind me what is the precise question, Angeliki, you wanted to know?
Your thoughts?
Yeah
Whether it could lead to more competition for you.
Okay. On digital banks, I will not give you a figure because honestly, first of all, it's difficult to monitor and we can try to see if we find figures. What I can tell you is what we see on our side with our figures and where we see that definitely the growth is higher. For normal reason, but once again, higher, but start with a starting point which is much lower. The reason to understand the reason is that selling saving solutions, investment solutions for a bank, it's much more complicated than selling credit-
Loans
or some other usual traditional bank products and solutions. You need to know, you need to understand, you need to follow the market. It requires people who know that well. It's hard for real. In a true digital way, you manage to offer solutions which are very well packaged and on which you communicate with your clients digitally, so the same communication for everybody at the same time. It can be very efficient. When you add the ETF to it makes a cost-efficient solution at the end of the day for the final client. All this explains the fact that the growth is higher, and that's what we see is real and will go on and will benefit Amundi for sure, considering who we are.
I will try to find something a bit official to answer more precisely to your question in terms of figures. The consolidation in Europe, we were expecting it. I mean, we've seen it over the past five years, clearly in the U.S. It's happening, it's normal, it's natural, obviously. Does that represent a competition for Amundi? Not at all. Why? For two reasons. First, an obvious reason, which is when you really concretely make a merger, you have a lot of work. We know that by heart. It's obviously taking a lot of time to the companies.
And second, because all these companies which are merging were working very much for their own banks or insurers, they were very internal, and not at all at the level of Amundi in terms of capacity to deliver service to the rest of the world. That's the two reasons why I'm not at all worried. I think it's natural and good that it happens on the market.
Sorry.
One last one. Sorry. Ursula von der Leyen and Christine Lagarde. We had a lunch in Davos on that specific topic with Christine and a lot of financial actors. I actually think that the Investment and Savings Union is a bit more easier to make than the Capital Markets Union. I think it's a good, it's a good, of course, a good road to follow. Obviously, Amundi, as such, is a good evidence of a strong European, completely integrated, asset manager working absolutely everywhere in Europe without any difficulties. I think we must encourage definitely that. It needs, what would be useful is a bit more simplification in the regulation to accelerate all this.
For a company like Amundi, I mean, we are big enough, scale enough, and staffed enough to be able to manage 27 regulators all over Europe and manage the differences from one to another. All efforts in terms of simplifications and aligning everybody will be very useful for the industry globally. What's easy for us is not easy for a small asset manager somewhere, and it is a bit costly. Yes, obviously, I'm more than in favor of all these efforts in that direction.
Can I ask a follow-up, if I may, on this particular topic? Is there any risk that we're moving more towards stronger consumer protection, which is something that we've seen, for example, in the U.K., that may end up harming business models that exist today in asset management? We already had a discussion on rebates over the past couple of years. Do you get a sense that this is the direction where the commission is moving towards or not really?
No. I mean, the protection of the European consumer is one of the goal of Europe in all areas and also in financial area. I think what's important, it was mentioned here, is also the protection and the fact to work on the autonomy of European players and actors. It doesn't mean that we need to work in favor of our clients at the end of the day, but also to protect and to work in favor of the big, large European actors in Europe. That's typically why we encourage that as well.
Okay. Do we have other questions from the room or? Yes, Isobel from Autonomous.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Isobel Hettrick from Autonomous Research. I also have three, please. First, you obviously mentioned the lower market share within third-party distribution. What do you think you need to do to increase your share of wallet with either existing distribution partners or continuing to add new partners? Is it just more of the same products and capabilities, or is it the developing piece around retirement solutions and wealth, private markets offering, which will really help accelerate growth there? Second, turning back to Italy, we saw outflows within the international networks. In Italy, we saw some of the asset gatherers, such as Fineco and Mediolanum, actually report some quite strong AUM numbers for the fourth quarter.
Can you talk about the specific dynamics here, and is it potentially that UniCredit is diverting flows and paying penalties to divert flows to its new joint venture with Azimut?
To what, sorry?
To divert flows to its new joint venture with Azimut.
Oh.
Finally, with the Indian mandate, RFP, you said we could see substantial outflows. In terms of the EUR 110 billion currently under management within this mandate, how much could be at risk? Thank you.
Okay. EPFO, just to precise what Nicolas was mentioning, is a huge pension fund in India and is growing so fast that they decided for the time being, they have two asset managers. We are one of them. And they decided for obvious reasons that considering the incredible size of this mandate, they wanted to give it to four or five, we don't know yet, and not only two. We know by definition, it's not a question that whether we are good or not good, or whether they will keep us or not.
We're absolutely certain that they will keep us as one provider, but they made, I would say, a structural decision to increase a little bit the number of people managing this huge portfolio, which will go on growing forever. It will depend on will it be four? Will it be five? Will it be more? We don't know yet. I cannot answer. What I can tell you and remind you once again is that it will be a big minus on the flows of Amundi somewhere in 2025, but honestly, zero impact on our results. Well, that's why we wanted to mention. By the way, the rest of the business in India is growing incredibly fast. On Italy, it's been a long time.
The IFAs, the IFAs are growing faster in the investment area than the traditional banks. As you may remember when we discussed during our dinner, we're working with 200 clients in Italy. So I always remind that because very big portfolio of clients. We have a very precise view of what's going on on the market. Fineco is one of our big clients, by the way. What I can tell you is that the trends are obvious in all the asset family. When you look at the Italian asset managers, you see what happened on the Italian market. It's not at all one bank specific. It's true for everybody. It has been very much true also because of the solutions, I would say, built by the government to push directly Italian bonds.
This is not at all case-specific. It's really trends that we've seen on the Italian market and trends that everybody saw on the Italian market.
We have very positive flows with third-party distributors, with IFA networks and so on in Italy.
That was I was mentioning. Typically, Fineco is one of our big clients. We're benefiting from all the trends on the markets on all sides. On the third party, it's really an addition of things. The most important trend for me is the fact that all third-party distributors in the world are rationalizing their setup in terms of distributing investment solutions to their clients, selecting a limited number of partners. Whereas five years ago, you still saw in some banks 250 asset managers in the portfolio. It's really more and more rare. When you can be one of the big partners driving and bringing everything, you are winning the game.
To be able to do that, you have to invest in, once again, active, passive, advisory, OCIOs for certain, private banks, private assets, the new ELTIF, retirement solutions, training of the workforces sometimes. We have a gamification of. Now, I am giving you very concrete example. We have a digital gamifications for the financial advisors within the banks, for instance, to help them advise the final retail clients. It can be also Partnerships on the middle office, and obviously, once again, technology also. I think we have close to answer your question, Isobel, I think we have close to everything to answer the needs of our partners. It also requires a strong willingness of adjustment and adaptation. The example I gave you on Standard Chartered is a very good one.
Standard Chartered is a global bank. They're operating in countries which are not obvious for everybody, especially when you speak about Africa, for instance. You have to be able to invest and to dedicate people and energy to launch something very global. Standard Chartered, it was a more than one-year project to be able to deliver one solution in 11 countries in Asia and Africa. There were very few people able to do that kind of thing, and we are one of them.
Yes. Tom Mills from Jefferies, then we will take one question from the room. I am conscious that this has been a very long conference call, we will try to make it shorter, please.
Thanks. I just had one question as a kind of follow-up on the question that Bruce Hamilton asked around the Vanguard fee cuts, and appreciate you're probably insulated in the short term, or Europe is insulated in the short term. But I guess if I was Larry Fink, sat there in the U.S., I would think, "Thank God I got those two large alts deals done last year. I may have paid up for them, but I was able to do them because of my multiple, because of my ability to kind of raise enough debt to get it done." But for everyone else, it's a bit of a nightmare, I think. If I fast-forward 10 years, what does all this mean?
Because you've got, I think, unlike almost any other industry in the world, a disruptive player that is not profit-seeking out there that's just gonna crush margins consistently over time. How do you guys kind of think about that? Well, first of all, you should ask the question to Larry Fink and not to me. I'm sure you can ask it to me. Second, this is not new. I mean, honestly, the fact that Vanguard is nonprofit is not, is not news. It's a fact for a long time. They will go on doing what they do. We'll go on doing what we do. I'm sorry, I'm gonna repeat myself, if it was only a question of price, we would know that. If it were only a question of performance, we would know that.
If it was only a question of scale, we would know that. Unfortunately, or fortunately, our job is a bit more complicated than that. We stick to the strategy, focusing on our clients, what they want, increase our scale, and make sure we are the winner in this, in this race, which is it true, is limiting the number of asset managers and giving the larger share of the profit and the business to the big ones.
Okay. Thanks. We'll take one question from the connected people. Sharat, can you open your mic and ask your question? Sharat? Nope. Okay, let me try this one.
Hello.
Yeah.
Sorry, I was not able to unmute. Thank you for taking my questions, and apologies for not being in person. I have three questions, two on India and one on French retail. Firstly, on India, I wanted to understand the stance of you and SBI when it comes to your commitment to doing the IPO. Again, specifically, the thing that I wanted to understand is versus fourth quarter 2021, when the previous IPO intent was publicized, I would think that the environment for IPOs in India is much more positive. Was the second-best market for IPOs in 2024. If anything, the situation is tailor-made for you to do an IPO.
I acknowledge that you would probably sell only a minority stake, but nevertheless, you know, the significant difference in valuation, I think, would be a useful help for your rerating story. That is the first question. The second, again, dwelling into India a bit into the underperformance, you know, in the fourth quarter, both in terms of P&L and flows. Should we be worried about the relative underperformance of Indian markets in recent months? You know, maybe resulting in lower appetite for flows. I know retail appetite has been very strong, but maybe can you comment on January performance if the weaker equity markets still had an impact on flows? The last one is on French retail. You know, given all the recent political developments, how would you categorize risk appetite?
Do you see any change in sentiment, especially after the cut to regulated savings deposits have been announced? Thank you.
Sorry, after the what?
After what?
The Livret A rate.
Ah.
The Livret A.
The Livret A. Okay. Okay. SBI IPOs, obviously, you're right in your analysis, but we'll see if it comes back. For the time being, it's still not yet on the table. You're right that it would obviously be very positive on the valuation, for sure, if it was happening. Second, I'm absolutely not worried about the recent underperforming markets in India. It doesn't change anything on the secular trend, which is the penetration of saving solution in India is less than 9% for the time being. The trend is so huge that it will not have any effect in the short, medium, and long term.
On the French retail and Livret A story, I mean, honestly, for the time being, we haven't seen any change. You know, it is also a bit.
It's a bit early.
First of all, it's a bit early and it's quite structural. Our French retail investors are quite risk adverse, and they are not moving so much their habits according to what's going on. No. I do not expect any huge change on that front. What I can confirm to you to finish is the fact that the flows we see globally in the beginning of 2025 are very positive, and we are very confident on the fact that the trends we've seen over the last quarter are continuing in 2025.
Okay. Thank you, Valérie. I think we can wrap up this conference call right now. We can continue this discussion if you have some time in the next room. For those of you connected, thank you very much for having attended and participated. We'll talk to you at the very last when we publish our Q1 results. You will have noticed that we will publish this year only on Tuesdays. It's not a habit, it's just a coincidence. See you on a Tuesday at the end of April. Thank you.
Thank you very much to all of you.
Thank you.