Good afternoon, and thank you for being with us here today for our presentation of the 2028 Strategic Plan: Invest for Future. It is my pleasure to welcome you. I'm Cyril Meilland, the Head of Investor Relations at Amundi, and we will have a full day, a full afternoon, sorry, of presentations about our strategic ambitions for the coming three years. As you know, it's a hybrid event, so we are welcoming you here in Paris at our head office, but also online via Zoom, and you will have the opportunity to ask questions both here and online. A replay will be made available as soon as possible, as well as the full transcript of the afternoon. First, can we have a disclaimer? Yes.
It is mandatory to have a disclaimer for these kinds of presentations, so I will not read it, but you have it online and consider it as an integral part of this presentation. Let us start, and let me quickly run you through the agenda for this afternoon. First, our CEO, Valérie Baudson, will take you through the main ambitions for these next three years. Then we will have three deep dives about three very key and important businesses that will drive our growth going forward. First, about retirement, a new business line, then about ETF, and then about technology. We will have a break, and Nicolas Calcoen, our Deputy CEO, will take you through the value creation part of his presentation, the financial targets. He will detail how we get to the targets we announced this morning.
Finally, we will have a Q&A session, taking questions again both from the room as well as online. You might have noticed that there will not be any Q&A session after each part, so please save your questions for the very end, but be sure that we will allow enough time to answer all of them, even though our aim is to finish at 5:30 P.M. sharp, as promised. Let us get started. As you may know, last week, actually on the 12th of November, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our IPO, a process in which I had the privilege to participate, a very great memory. Today, the presentations will start with a short video highlighting the many achievements and all the successes that we experienced over the past 10 years and that have made Amundi what it is today.
After this, Valérie will take the floor and look at the future for the next three years. Let's start with the video.
It's been 10 years since our IPO, 10 years of leadership, 10 years of growth, 10 years of diversification in all geographies, in all investment solutions, thought leadership, investment, technology, services for all client segments, 10 years of performance for our clients, 10 years of track record in M&A, 10 years of delivering for shareholders, and 10 years of being a trusted partner, working every day in the interest of our clients and society.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. 10 years ago, we launched our IPO. It has been the catalyst for a remarkable and successful journey, including major business expansion and external growth initiatives. Since then, we have created significant value for our clients and our shareholders, and we will continue to do so thanks to our new strategic plan, Invest for the Future 2028. By focusing on the ambitions we are presenting today, we will continue to create value in the next three years and invest in our long-term leadership beyond 2028. Let's start with our main financial targets. Our commitment is to deliver, once again, a clear earnings trajectory, industry-leading cost efficiency, attractive shareholder returns, and a defined capital management strategy. These targets take into account all UniCredit scenarios. As with our previous strategic plans, they do not include any positive market effect.
We are targeting adjusted EPS of more than EUR 7 in 2028. We will deliver EUR 300 billion of cumulative net inflows from our strategic growth areas. Next, a cost-income ratio below 56% in 2028, reflecting our commitment to be at industry-leading levels. This includes reinvestment of EUR 800 million organically over the plan in our long-term strategic growth areas to ensure continued leadership. We are, once again, committing to a payout ratio of more than 65%. Under our Strategic Ambitions 2025 plan, we delivered above our target with more than EUR 200 million in additional dividends. We will continue to deliver attractive shareholder returns through our new plan. Finally, capital management. We will keep seeking out our external growth opportunities that strengthen our activities, and we have the financial firepower to achieve this. Today, we have announced a new strategic and capital partnership with ICG, which will build our private assets offer.
I will provide more details on this exciting deal at the end of my presentation. Once again, we will be disciplined in how we approach and execute acquisitions. Opportunities must drive growth, have manageable execution risk, and deliver a return on investment of at least 10% within three years. We will maintain an appropriate level of capital for these opportunities and retain the flexibility to return excess capital to shareholders. We also confirmed today that we will return remaining excess capital from the 2025 strategic cycle to shareholders via share buybacks. Nicolas Calcoen will go into more detail regarding capital management in his presentation. We can make these financial commitments thanks to our fundamental strengths. Our comprehensive investment solutions span active and passive strategies and growing real alternative private and structured asset offers. We deliver strong and consistent performance.
We offer global, regional, and local expertise, including the U.S., through our Victory Capital partnership. We draw on the widest responsible investment offering built on consistent methodology and 15 years' experience. We have successfully built a technology offer at scale in ALTO and are the only European one-stop shop for services. We deliver this comprehensive investment solution thanks to our global reach with close client proximity across 35 countries. We have a large and truly diversified client base with more than 1,000 institutions and over 600 distributors. Our third-party distribution business is a key success story and now represents more than half of Amundi's retail assets under management. We have a proven ability to lead in an open architecture environment, providing quality solutions to an even wider pool of clients and drive additional growth.
Our relationships with major institutions, our many distribution agreements, and our successful JVs all demonstrate our ability to provide tailored, collaborative solutions for any business model or end client need. I'm also pleased to announce that we will renew our distribution agreement with Société Générale for an additional five-year period, and we have just been selected by ING as one of their preferred investment solutions partners. These strengths, together with our demonstrated excellence in strategic execution, are part of our DNA. This excellence starts with our industry-leading cost efficiency achieved while consistently investing in growth. There are many great examples across our scalable business model, from our low-cost and innovative ETF platform to ALTO, which costs us around one basis point of assets under management, much less than our peers. We also offer this efficiency to clients, generating revenues and further cost savings.
This industrial model is supported by our strong and engaged teams. When we see an opportunity to accelerate our ambitions, we have an unrivaled M&A track record. Our most recent plan, Ambitions 25, clearly demonstrated our strategic execution. We have delivered diversification and growth, sustained our responsible investment leadership, and created real value. Thanks to this strong platform, we are confident that Amundi will continue to lead in a rapidly changing savings and investment environment. Here, we have highlighted the key industry trends at play in our space. Saving for retirement is now an individual pursuit driven by an aging population. This is creating a huge addressable market for defined contribution pension schemes. Next, the continued shift of assets under management grows towards Asia, outpacing EMEA and the Americas. Asia is seeing a rapid rise in its middle classes with an increasing need for savings solutions.
We are extremely well-positioned regarding these two demographic growth drivers. Within our industry, there are major disruptive transformations to consider collectively: the continued digitalization of distribution, greater concentration with the largest asset managers as distributors work with players who can offer greater customization and more services, the rapid adoption of AI and increasing data requirements, putting pressure on players to find a true technology partner, and accelerating demand for efficient, low-cost liquid products, typically ETFs, combined with the need for active, tailored, high-performing, high-margin solutions. There is also the democratization of private assets. These trends all lead to an accelerated polarization of our industry. This will benefit Amundi as a leader that delivers comprehensive solutions globally. This is our landscape. As we look to the next strategic cycle and beyond, now is the right time to invest for the future to ensure our long-term leadership.
Let's look more closely at our key strategic priorities. Invest for the Future 2028 is built on six ambitions that will ensure we leverage our scale and diverse expertise, continue to strengthen our solutions to anticipate demand, and innovate as a technology and digitalization leader. I am going to provide a high-level overview of the first four: clients, geographies, solutions, and technology, and Nicolas will look more closely at efficiency and investments in his presentation. Let's start with clients, where we will accelerate our diversification across all segments by 2028, with a priority focus on two areas with significant growth potential. The first area is retirement. Here, we have created a new business line to best package our investment solution, technology, and services. This new business is built on our market leadership in France and Italy, and we have started to expand across Northern Europe and Asia.
We will become the preferred retail partner for retail and institutional clients, generating EUR 100 billion in net inflows in retirement solutions by 2028. Vincent Mortier and Dominic Byrne, our new Global Head of Retirement Solutions, will share more details later. Next, digital distribution. Digital platforms represent one of our fastest-growing client segments, with these distribution channels set to grow three times faster than traditional outlets. As we highlighted at our recent third-party distribution workshop, we serve very different partners across the full savings value chain. We support digital players moving up towards wealth management clients with a broader investment proposition, and we help banks in the continued digitalization of their savings offer. This is leading to the convergence of both business models.
For all digital players, our services, such as ETF as a service, model portfolio solutions, and our wider technology offer, all represent new and growing sources of revenue. Our ambition is to increase the number of digital partners by 50% by 2028. Looking at geographies next, let's start with Asia, a major growth engine for Amundi and our number two home market. Asia already accounts for close to EUR 500 billion in assets under management and just over 50% of our total 2024 inflows. Our strong growth is powered by our setup, which combines a strong direct presence, successful JVs, and unique global local capabilities. Here, we will cement our leadership and reinforce our position as the one-stop shop partner for all leading financial and public institutions. We are targeting EUR 150 billion net inflows by the end of 2028, doubling those generated during our previous three-year plan.
We have announced our intention to list our Indian JV, SBI FM, in 2026, driving further growth from this highly successful business. We will also explore opportunities to develop in other fast-growing markets. We are pleased to confirm that we will have a dedicated investor workshop on Asia in the first half of 2026 to present our exciting growth plan in more detail. Closer to home, Europe continues to offer significant growth opportunities for Amundi. We will significantly grow our market share in Northern Europe with a focus on the U.K., Germany, the Benelux countries, and the Nordics. We have strong foundations in the region with EUR 310 billion in assets under management today, a figure that has grown by 57% since 2022. We will also reinforce our presence in high-potential regions such as Latin America, the Middle East, and South Africa through new openings and expansion.
We see a great opportunity to build on strong client activity in these regions. Now, solutions, where we will accelerate transformation through investment. Our active management capabilities are core to building innovative solutions. In active, we will simplify and scale up by growing the size of our flagship funds, leveraging our continental expertise and new high-potential strategies. These will include securitization, where we will benefit from changing and easing European regulation. We are also actively watching the development of digital assets with several concrete projects, including our first tokenized money market fund, which recently saw its first trade. Our goal is to develop solutions such as tokenized share classes and ETP on Bitcoin, all to address client demand in a secure and appropriate way. We will, of course, also remain the worldwide leader of responsible investment, a differentiating and comparative advantage versus our global peers.
Building on our strong credentials, we will pursue innovations in areas such as blended finance, climate funds, and natural capital solutions. We will also continue to develop our stewardship offer. In passive, we are fully embracing exponential growth in ETFs and index management. Amundi is the number one European ETF provider, exceeding EUR 300 billion in assets under management alone and close to EUR 500 billion, including index management. We are among the very few players operating at true scale in this segment. We have demonstrated our capacity to generate outstanding growth, achieving our previous planned target one year ahead of schedule. The momentum continues, and we have collected EUR 55 billion in net inflows in the year to date. We have a deep dive on ETFs presented by Fannie Wurtz , Benoît Sorel, and Gilles Dauphine, who will highlight the key opportunities, including passive and active ETFs and our new white labeling business.
For private assets, future growth will increasingly come from the growing participation of wealth investors. This is a massive opportunity for Amundi, given our diverse distribution expertise. We will also develop our offering by increasing synergies with Crédit Agricole Group, by providing solutions to Crédit Agricole Assurance, and with Crédit Agricole Wealth and regional banks. We will take advantage of these growth opportunities, leveraging our strong multi-management expertise and Alpha Associates. We will also strengthen our offering through external partnerships, and I will share more details on our investment in market leader ICG shortly. Finally, Amundi Technology, which is now operating at scale with clients in more than 15 markets. We are now a recognized technology provider covering the entire savings value chain, and our aim is to be the preferred solution in Europe and Asia.
Amundi Technology is an important growth driver for Amundi, and we are confident that we can double its revenues by 2028. It is also, sorry, it also represents an important enabler for Amundi, enhancing our investment solutions and creating durable long-term client relationships. Guillaume Lesage and Ben Lucas will share more in the deep dive later. Before we look more closely at some of our ambitions, I want to spend a few moments on our new strategic and capital partnership in private assets. As announced this morning, Amundi is becoming a strategic shareholder in ICG, a leading London-listed European private asset specialist. We will take up 10% of the capital and get a seat on the board. We are creating a ten-year strategic partnership that will provide our wealth clients with privileged access to ICG expertise and a platform to develop new joint offerings.
On the institutional side, the partnership has been extended to Crédit Agricole Assurance, who will invest through Amundi in direct lending from 2026. Let me briefly introduce ICG and highlight what the partnership will deliver for our clients and the positive financial impact that it will have for Amundi and its shareholders. ICG is a recognized private assets player with more than EUR 120 billion in assets under management, primarily for its around 800 institutional clients. It has diversified expertise in secondaries, private credit, and real assets, and an outstanding track record. It is also highly diversified by geography and client type and has demonstrated its ability to generate profits at scale. For Amundi, ICG has the right profile to expand our offering in this growing segment, supported by clear long-term trends, as I mentioned earlier.
This partnership will support our development of a leading global multi-expertise private markets platform, offering access to high-performing private asset strategies historically reserved for institutional investors. The partnership will also draw on Amundi's specialist expertise in investment solutions suited to wealth clients, such as Evergreen Funds, Close End Funds, and LTIFs. I'm pleased to announce that two Evergreen strategies will be developed with ICG for our extensive network of distribution clients in the first half of 2026. Let's hear from Benoît Durteste, CEO of ICG, who will share his perspective on this new partnership.
I'm very pleased that ICG and Amundi, two global leaders with European roots in asset management and private markets, have entered into this strategic partnership. Our common goal is to be an important force in shaping access for individuals to private market investments while maintaining an unflinching focus on risk and generating attractive investment returns.
In the very short term, our focus will be on developing Evergreen private debt and Evergreen private equity secondary strategies, meeting the growing needs from wealth customers for such long-term investment solutions. Amundi and ICG will also work together to develop new products specifically appropriate to this market, including blended investment solutions combining sleeves managed by ICG for private markets and by Amundi for listed assets. As part of our relationship, Amundi will take a stake in ICG and will nominate a non-executive director to our board. To my mind, this further underlines the long-term strategic nature of this partnership.
I'm convinced that we will create significant value for our respective shareholders, leveraging our complementary strengths, and I am excited to work with Amundi to develop more products and strategies that do not compromise on investment quality and performance while addressing the growing appetite of the wealth market for private investments.
We are very excited by the significant long-term value this partnership will generate. This deal fully meets our strict ROI criteria, with meaningful synergies expected, and we expect the transaction to be around 5% equity to EPS. In summary, this partnership with ICG, a recognized private assets player, is a unique opportunity that is fully aligned with the strategic ambitions presented today and will create real value for our stakeholders. To summarize, our Invest for the Future strategy has clear ambitions that will deliver EUR 300 billion of cumulative net inflows and drive our long-term global leadership.
It is time to take a closer look at some of them now. I will be back for some closing remarks after Nicolas' value creation presentation. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you, Valérie. As Valérie said, we will now look closer into three major growth areas. Each deep dive will be preceded by a short video highlighting the market opportunity, and then the speakers will detail what our ambitions are for the future. The first deep dive is about retirement. It will be presented by Vincent and Dominic. Let's play the video.
Across the globe, populations are aging. In 2000, 7% of the world population was aged over 65. By 2075, one in five people will be over 65. This raises pressure on retirement systems, with an increased burden on the active population to support retirees.
In Korea, for example, there will be as many actives as retirees in 2060. If individuals only rely on mandatory pensions, they may lose half of their income the day they retire. To make up for this, they need to save more during their work life. Defined benefit plans decline in favor of DC assets. This means that defined contribution and personal savings are becoming the backbone of retirement. Regulations around retirement are constantly evolving. Innovation in technology changes the way people save. For example, 77% of people around the globe now hold investments on a digital app. Regulation, technology, and new propositions are transforming retirement, unlocking trillions in addressable assets across Europe and Asia. Our addressable market is $8 trillion today. We predict it will grow at a pace of 7% a year, reaching $11 trillion by 2028. The future of retirement is now, and it's global.
Good afternoon.
I'm Vincent Mortier, Amundi's Chief Investment Officer, and I'm very pleased to be here with our new Group Head of Retirement Solutions, Dominic Byrne. Welcome, Dominic. As our video highlighted, there is huge addressable value in the retirement market for Amundi to be captured. We already have a significant foundation to build on with around EUR 400 billion of assets under management. These assets are diversified across retail and insurer clients, and also across a wide variety of investment wrappers. While we are historically strongest in European markets like France and Italy, naturally, we are also seeing increasing diversification into markets like the U.K., Germany, and Asia. As Valérie highlighted during her speech, Amundi's strength is in its comprehensive client-centric investment solutions. In retirement, we can bring the very best of Amundi to deliver what our clients and investors want.
It can be from model portfolios and wrapping solutions to off-the-shelves and co-design custom mandates. These solutions are enhanced through our leading technology and services offer. Amundi's broad range of retirement-focused capabilities are also perfectly aligned with client needs. Of course, depending on client appetite, we can invest in managed solutions across active, passive, and private assets to generate returns and diversify risks. This enables us to design all building blocks and all of excellent quality. This offering will be reinforced by our partnership with ICG. It will prove particularly attractive for our wealth and retail clients. Our core strength is in active management, and especially our allocation capabilities and our strong risk management that will serve our retirement ambition. Amundi investment teams have super credentials in managing overlay strategies and allowing investors to successfully navigate risk exposures and sensitivities.
We have recently won some very high-profile overlay mandates with top-notch institutional retirement schemes in France and in the U.K., and we are confident such offerings can develop even further. Our goal is to optimize investment across the retirement journey. We can generate income and guarantees, which are all key to the retirement solutions needs. Last but not least, we also draw on a market-leading responsible investment offer, which is increasingly a success factor, in particular for European clients. These capabilities resonate with clients and differentiate us from our esteemed peers. We are rising to meet the opportunity, and we have a clear group-wide plan to achieve our ambition. The creation of a new business line will allow us to best coordinate our efforts to meet client demand and further grow.
We are therefore reallocating some resources in order to organize and strengthen our execution, and we are working, as we speak, to develop offerings across investment solutions, sales, and technology. The appointment of Dominic to lead our new business line is a clear signal of our intent. Dominic is a highly experienced specialist in retirement solutions, both for institutional and retail clients. He brings with him global experience, and we are very excited to have him on board. Welcome, Dominic. Let me hand over to you, Dominic, to dive deeper into our strategy.
Thank you, Vincent, for the warm welcome, and good afternoon, everyone. It is a privilege to be here. Vincent has introduced the foundations of our retirement offer. Let me build on that briefly before getting into our strategy.
Our proven leadership in Amundi's traditional home markets of France and Italy provides a fantastic platform for future success. We are the number one savings and retirement provider in France, and this is an EUR 18 billion business which has delivered robust growth in assets under management since 2018. In France, we offer the entire retirement ecosystem, from investments to administration and communication. We manage the entire journey from both accumulation to decumulation, and we have successfully innovated in what is seen as a traditional investment space. We've achieved this through the development of engaging digital tools, custom portfolios, and active and private market solutions. My colleagues in France and Italy were very excited to show me our new retirement savings app, and I was delighted to see it and learn that we built it.
In addition to this compelling digital engagement, our investment teams right now are rolling out new strategies that harness both active management and private markets, and the result is a powerful proposition for both individuals and corporates. In these markets, we serve over 1.4 million individuals and 65,000 employers who trust us to manage their savings. This proven expertise in our home markets has provided both the credibility and the skill set for further expansion. Let's move on to expansion now. We have already demonstrated our ability to expand in some of the world's most competitive markets with very established business names. Today, we serve millions of British retirement savers. We are growing market share in German pensions, and we have significant assets in Asia through workplace pension arrangements. Let me get deeper into a couple of examples.
Firstly, back to my home country, the U.K., the rapidly expanding U.K. Master Trust market. Here we've partnered with People's Pension and NEST. Their assets have grown five times since 2018. Here we provide active, alternative, and passive investment solutions. We're also providing innovative asset allocation and analytics via our technology services, which my colleague and countryman, Ben Lucas, is going to pick up later. Amundi's strong responsible investment credentials were a key success factor here, particularly given the strong alignment with TPP's stewardship priority areas. Another success factor is our ability to serve these clients as this industry evolves. This matters for retirement, and it matters at scale. Regulatory shifts are shaping investment frameworks and accelerating change, meaning now is the moment to act.
At the same time, as personal savings increasingly shoulder retirement outcomes, we're seeing a surge of research and product innovation in this space. That innovation is happening now, and we can repeat our successes to drive further growth. The second example is BCT, which is a Hong Kong workplace pension provider. This partner has more than doubled their assets since 2018. Here we provide investments, third-party manager selection, asset allocation, as well as active and passive building blocks. Critically, we're doing this with local marketing and local client service. Here, Amundi's unique combination of global scale and critical local presence is a driver in our success factor with this client. We are well positioned to replicate this growth with other clients in other expanding markets. This is just a snapshot of what we're doing. The headline really is about momentum. DC and retail activity is accelerating.
Clients are asking us for new retirement propositions and stronger post-retirement solutions, and they're asking for it now. With this market backdrop and regulatory tailwinds, it is the perfect moment to scale our capabilities and grow. Let's talk a bit about our strategy. Taking all of that into consideration, we have a targeted strategy across both retail and institutional. In retail, as Valérie explained, retirement savings is rapidly becoming more individualized, and we are ready to capitalize. Clients are looking for fresh accumulation strategies, purpose-built, easy-access solutions. Savings must also be converted into reliable income in retirement via decumulation and other post-retirement products. Here, advisors and individuals rely on tech-enabled planning tools embedded into their proposition and the market, and Amundi can deliver against all of these requirements.
Looking to the institutional side, the market is experiencing rapid growth, and this is in an environment where DB schemes are closing and auto-enrollment is funneling lots of assets into workplace pensions. The growth opportunity here comes with delivering institutional-grade products and services at scale. It requires players who can innovate, offer higher-value services such as private assets, and innovative asset allocation and risk management tools. Again, Amundi has all the solutions to win in this space. In terms of our market approach, our focus aligns with the geographic ambitions that Valérie presented earlier today. We will build on our leadership in our core European markets, and we will expand in major defined contribution markets with a focus on Northern Europe, such as the U.K., Ireland, Germany, and Netherlands. We will also pursue new distribution partnerships across Europe and Asia to unlock new opportunities. That is all for me.
I'm going to hand back over to Vincent now for some closing remarks.
Thank you, Dominic. That's impressive. In conclusion, retirement represents a massive opportunity for Amundi. We have the experience. We have the breadth of capabilities to go out from print and achieve our EUR 100 billion float target by 2028. EUR 100 billion. We will leverage our global scale and our local presence to address both institutional and retail segments. Our strategy is well-targeted. Our plan is clear, and we are ready to execute. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Vincent. Thank you, Dominic. Our next deep dive is about ETF, which, as Valérie said, is an exponentially growing business, especially for us at Amundi. We'll start, like the previous deep dive, with a short video, and then Fannie, Benoît, and Gilles will detail our ambitions for the next three years.
ETFs have been a key transformational innovation for the investment industry. The UCITS ETF market has reached EUR 2,400 billion and is growing three times faster than traditional asset management. ETF growth is supported by industry-wide tailwinds, rising wealth, growing retirement needs, the digitalization of savings, and by ETF-specific drivers, innovations like model portfolios, goal-based investment, and active ETFs. Exponential ETF growth is observed across all client segments, from large asset owners like central banks to wealth and retail banks and digital players, leveraging ETFs to democratize investing. Amundi has been a pioneer in this market, launching its first ETF in 2001, with a strong history of organic growth and innovation. With the acquisition of Lyxor in 2022, Amundi has become the number one European ETF provider. Launching its first active ETFs in 2024, Amundi reaffirms its leadership in innovation to better serve its clients.
Amundi now exceeds EUR 300 billion AUM, demonstrating steady exponential growth in the ETF market.
Good afternoon. I am Fannie Wurtz , Head of Wealth and Distribution, ETF, and Chair of Asia. I am pleased to be here with Benoît Sorel and Gilles Dauphine for this deep dive on our booming ETF business. Before we share a roadmap, let me first remind you what has made us successful over the past few years. Three years ago, when we acquired Lyxor, we announced a 2025 target of EUR 420 billion for the ETF and indexing platform. We are already at EUR 481 billion, reaching this target one year ahead of schedule. We have also raised EUR 55 billion of net inflows in the first nine months of 2025. In ETF, we reached the EUR 300 billion milestone at the end of September. This was achieved thanks to solid commercial performance across all client segments and all geographies.
In terms of clients, since our last medium-term plan, we have intensified our client diversification with roughly half of our AUM from retail at large and the other half from asset owners and asset managers. For digital channel, we have achieved major growth, multiplying our AUM by four. In terms of geographies, in Europe, we were already well diversified and have further accelerated in Germany and the U.K. German clients now represent close to one-fourth of our AUM. Outside of Europe, we have more than doubled our AUM over the last three years. For all of these reasons, we are very confident about the future. Let me hand over to Benoît, who will share more details about our ETF platform, and I will be back at the end to cover our key growth drivers for the coming years.
Thank you, Fannie, and good afternoon, everyone.
My name is Benoît Sorel, and I'm heading Amundi's ETF and Indexing business line. Let me start with a few words on our cutting-edge platform and the growing scale of our business. We've highlighted here a few data points to illustrate our progress. If we look at the platform's AUM that Fannie just mentioned relative to the number of staff, for instance, we now manage EUR 5 billion per full-time employee. This figure was EUR 3 billion just three years ago. This is a 67% increase. We offer the full choice in replication techniques, physical, synthetics, hybrids, the full range of fund domiciles from Ireland to Luxembourg, France, and Germany, and the full range of investment wrappers, ETFs, index funds, and [LIITs]. This is powered by fantastic industry-leading technology with dedicated ALTO models.
This includes ALTO index tracking to industrialize equity and fixed income index investment processes, and a dedicated web portal to process ETF orders from authorized participants called ALTO AP. Being an efficient ETF provider also means operating in an efficient ecosystem. For instance, in terms of liquidity and market access, we have over EUR 120 billion in annual exchange-traded volumes on our ETFs. The last word on the scale of our platform versus our peers. We have doubled our share of billionaire ETFs in the market with 79 ETFs over EUR 1 billion. This is also a key element of scaling liquidity for our clients. Now, beyond scale, another key reason for our success is innovation. We have been at the forefront of ETF indexing innovation from the very start, driven by client centricity and business pragmatism. Let me share a few examples here again.
Since our last strategic plan, our innovation has focused on three key trends. First, championing responsible investment and climate adoption amongst institutional investors. Two great examples are the Bespoke Low Carbon Fund we launched back in 2020 in partnership with Oxford and Cambridge universities. More recently, the ETF we co-designed with FLAR, which is a reserve fund from Latin American central banks. Second, providing more precise building blocks for asset allocators, which is central for the ETF industry. A great example here is the dual launch of our U.S. Mega Cap and Ex-Mega Cap ETF, which is now a key element for more refined U.S. exposure, or our European Defense ETF. Third, a key driver for innovation has been to address retailization. Retail adoption is a major growth driver in the ETF market and we are at the forefront of translating this trend into product innovation.
Our Life Cycle ETFs that fit into a goal-based or retirement investing are a perfect example. These are great tools for a new retirement business, which Vincent and Dominic just presented earlier. As you can see, all these innovations arise from close relationships with our clients and commercial partners. Looking ahead, we have already a very strong pipeline for the coming 12 months, and we plan to launch around 50 new ETFs over the next three years, always with our guiding principle of client centricity. Let me now hand over to Gilles who will zoom in on some of the rising needs in the ETF market.
Thank you, Benoît. Good afternoon, everybody. I am Gilles Dauphine, the Head of the Active ETF Business Line. Let me start with Active ETF.
Over the past 18 months, AUM of Active ETF in Europe have doubled, and they are expected to triple by 2029. This is an exciting opportunity as Active ETF generates much higher fees than index funds. Amundi has been an early mover in launching Active ETF with a full SRI-labeled ETF suite. By combining our first-class ETF capabilities with our undisputable active expertise through our 17 investment centers, we can offer clients the best of both worlds. Today, we are going one step further in Active ETF by launching a dedicated business line and building a full range of Active ETF. I am pleased to confirm that the Amundi Euro Money Market ETF will be launched and listed on the exchanges in the coming days.
Our Active ETF will cover all critical building blocks for clients wishing to create a diversified portfolio, from money market to credit, from credit to equity, using continental strategies on equity. They will encompass a wide range of geographical exposures, including global, U.S., Europe, emerging markets. To meet the growing demand from wealth managers and digital platforms, we will add a full Active ETF model portfolio to our offering. In total, we are planning to launch 20 new Active ETFs by 2028. Now, as the largest European ETF provider, we are also the best positioned player to offer what we call ETF as a service. This is a white-label or ETF hosting proposition, which allows our clients to benefit from a highly scalable ETF infrastructure, but under their own brand. The demand for this service is coming mainly from two client segments.
On one side, digital and wealth partners looking to develop an ETF offering under their own branding. On the other, asset managers wanting to unlock the benefit of ETF wrappers for their own active strategies, and thus without having to launch their own platform, which can be costly. Backed by our first-class scalable platform, we are becoming the one-stop shop for all clients embracing the ETF journey. Our offer is modular. We are able to cover all or just some parts of the ETF value chain. This means we are perfectly adapting to client needs. We already have multiple client successes and a very strong client pipeline. We have highlighted two recent ETF as a service wins in Germany, one with digital investment platform Finanzen.net, and another with asset manager Leico Nagel.
By offering this service, we are diversifying our revenue streams while leveraging on our existing platform, and we are broadening our set of services and solutions to serve our clients end-to-end. By 2028, we plan to launch 30 new ETFs under this service. Back to you, Fannie.
Thank you, Gilles. Let's look at our key drivers for the coming years. The retail ETF market is booming across the globe. In Europe, for example, the number of self-care investors already stands at 31 million and is expected to almost double in the next three years. Germany will lead the way with 10 million digital investors. The U.K. will follow very closely behind with a projected 9 million investors, while France, Italy, and Spain will double the number of digital investors. At Amundi, we are fully embracing this opportunity.
We have grown twice as fast as the market, and we have no more than 45 digital wealth partners like Revolut and BoursoBank in Europe and DWS in Asia. We are also expanding to new territories like South Africa, where we just signed a partnership with Satrix. In the coming years, our objective is to partner with all key digital players in every major market, increasing the number of partnerships by 50%. We also leverage this strong positioning and know-how to be the partner of choice for leading banks and wealth managers digitalizing their offering. This obviously goes beyond ETFs, as we are equipping our clients with a full suite of Amundi solutions, including portfolio models and wealth tech. We have just seen how the retail segment is accelerating its adoption of ETFs, but the same can be said from asset owners.
These investors are using our over 300 of the shares ETFs. Beyond that, let me show you three examples of how we address and leverage as well their specific needs. First, central banks. Central banks are increasingly adopting ETFs to meet specific needs, and ETFs now constitute a large part of their reserves. An example is FLAR, the Latin American reserve fund that was mentioned earlier by Benoît. Here we have co-designed a global ESG corporate ETF where four Latin American central banks and supranationals have already invested. Second example is pension funds. One of our clients, Ilmarinen, requested the Bespoke Climate ETF solution, which we were very happy to launch for them. Third, retirement and defined contribution.
As highlighted by Vincent and Dominic earlier, we are working with the People's Pension who have trusted Amundi with a GBP 20 billion index mandate coupled with technology and ESG advisory. These are only three examples, but we have many more. They are a good illustration of how we can partner with institutional clients on their ETF and indexing needs, and we obviously have room to grow. Over the next three years, we target to increase the number of institutional clients equipped with ETF and index by 50%, leveraging Amundi's very robust institutional sales force. Today, we have given you a quick tour of how Amundi is leading the exponential growth of ETF markets. Over the coming years, we will widen this leadership as being the partner of choice for every ETF and indexing need.
We will champion the massive retail and digital wealth opportunity, increasing our number of partnerships by 50%. We will further equip central banks and institutions with Bespoke ETF and index solutions, increasing the number of ETF-equipped institutional clients by 50% as well. To do so, we will pursue our client-centric innovative trajectory, addressing all of the high potential themes. We will leverage our first-class platform to deploy ETF as a service. We will expand the reach of our active strategy through the launch of a full suite of active ETFs. By 2028, we will have launched a total of 100 new ETFs, widening our leadership as the number one ETF provider. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Fannie, Benoît, Gilles. Our next deep dive is about technology. As you know, technology is a new business for Amundi since 2021.
Guillaume and Ben will present the way forward for the next three years. Before, we will start with a video looking at the tech opportunity.
Over the last 25 years, technology has reshaped every aspect of the business world, and the pace of innovation is only accelerating. Yet, many parts of financial services are still catching up. With margins getting squeezed and technology costs rising due to outdated and fragmented technology stacks, the industry is realizing that transformation is no longer optional. The industry is now focusing on modernizing their technology and data infrastructure, putting it at the heart of their strategic priorities. Many of them admit that they cannot do it alone. Amundi Technology is positioned to lead as the partner of choice. We combine deep industry expertise with scalable technology to deliver excellence for our clients through our ALTO suite of solutions.
Over the past three years, our client base has rapidly grown and diversified across market segments and geographies, creating a solid foundation for growth.
Good afternoon, good afternoon. For those who don't know me, I am Guillaume Lesage, Group Chief Operating Officer of Amundi. In 1903, King Edward VII arrived at Gare du Nord in what would be a key step in establishing the Entente Cordiale between the U.K. and France. I'm happy today to be presented in partnership with Ben Lucas, the CEO of Amundi Technology, and a loyal British subject, His Majesty, to continue this tradition. We created Amundi Technology just four years ago, and it is already a key growth driver and a strategic enabler for the group.
Thanks to the progress made since then, we are now fully fledged, a fully fledged tech provider with a recognized software as a service, SaaS solution that covers the entire savings value chain. ALTO is now one of the most innovative solutions on the market, a must-have in the tech world. It is modular, it is open source, and it is enhanced by artificial intelligence. It has also become a key strategic enabler for the wider Amundi group. Why? Because it enhances the investment solution Amundi provides to its clients, because it creates durable long-term relationships, and because it represents a key differentiator compared to most asset managers. We have secured some fantastic strategic client wins in recent years, and we spoke about several of these at the third-party distribution workshop organized earlier this year in London. You'll be aware of Amundi's GBP 20 billion investment mandate with a People's Pension.
Fannie spoke about it. In addition to this mandate, we offer TPP access to a comprehensive suite of services and solutions: ESG data, metrics, reporting, data analytics, all delivered through ALTO . Second example, a wealth institution delegates billions of funds to Amundi and at the same time has chosen ALTO to manage its own direct investments and oversee the global risk and performance of its assets. What I would like to highlight is that all technology partnerships are strategic, with decisions made at the CEO or at the COO level, and they are long-term, lasting at least five years, very often ten years. As mentioned in the video, we have created a solid foundation for growth, tripling where we were at the start of the last plan.
Our client base is now very international, with clients in more than 15 countries, and we host EUR 8 trillion of assets on the platform. We have invested both to develop and improve the ALTO platform with the four core solutions, but also to transform our organization from a top IT department to a true software company. The acquisition of Axigo, leading wealth tech, has enabled us to accelerate our penetration in a market which is massive. Axigo provides an API-based solution. API means Application Programming Interface that can be easily integrated into the IT systems of banks. I can tell you this integration capacity is now becoming a standard requirement for large firms like Commerzbank or Vontobel. Finally, the integration of Axigo into Amundi Technology, thanks, Ben, is now fully completed, and the feedback from Amundi clients is very, very positive.
Let me spend now a moment on Amundi's product and geographic diversification. You can see on the left of the slides that revenues are well diversified between the four products. First, ALTO Investment, which is used by Amundi for our business, is our first offer and represents about a third of revenues. It has been joined by ALTO Employee Savings and Retirement, dedicated to French clients, another third. ALTO Wealth and Distribution, which focuses on advisory and DPM, discretionary portfolio management for retail and wealth banks, and ALTO Asset Servicing, which covers compliance control, portfolio analysis, reports generation, those two together make up the final third of revenues. Ben will go into more detail on new offerings, AI, data management that we will roll out in the coming years. It is clear that this product diversification allows us to benefit from clients' different investment cycles.
It also allows us to benefit from cross-selling to existing clients. For instance, one of our major insurance clients, they use ALTO Investment to monitor their portfolios, and they chose ALTO Employee Savings and Retirement for another business for their corporate clients in collective insurance. On the right, you see we are also increasingly diversified by geography. You can see that our clients are well spread across almost all European countries, and we are progressively expanding into Asia. As investors, you know that fintechs have very often difficulties to expand beyond their initial market. We have proved our capacity to do so because we built a global solution from day one. Now let me hand over to Ben to look more closely at our plan for the next years.
Thank you very much, Guillaume, appreciated.
I'm delighted to share with you our clear roadmap to make Amundi Technology the preferred solution for the savings and investment ecosystem across Europe and Asia, and ultimately to double our revenues. There are three pillars to our plan. First, we will continue to expand our product suite, launching new offerings that meet the evolving demands of the market, most notably, as Guillaume mentioned, Data as a Service and ALTO AI Studio. Second, we will leverage our acquisition of Axigo to capture the significant and fast-growing opportunity within the wealth management segment. Third, we will fully leverage the power of the Amundi Group by unlocking distribution synergies and offering integrated investment and technology solutions. Each pillar supports our goal to materially accelerate our growth and be a leading provider of technology to the industry. Let's take a look at each one.
We are rolling out two new strategic products that will support the growth in the coming years. Firstly, financial services is fundamentally a data business, and as we accelerate into a hyper-digital world, how companies use that data and derive value from that data will become even more important. In a recent study by a leading financial institution, data and analytics was identified as the top trend and the focus area for wealth and asset managers in the next three to five years. Despite this, many players admit it is an area of underinvestment and that poor data quality is a real pain point for them. 60% of wealth and asset managers say they lack the appropriate technology infrastructure. What an incredible opportunity for us.
This is why we've developed our Data as a Service offering, an outsourced service where we manage all the data activity on behalf of our clients, leveraging our robust data architecture, our data provider connectivity, and our market data expertise. It enables our clients to generate actionable insights and make data-driven decisions at a lower cost. The solution is comprehensive, scalable, and is compliant with regulatory standards across markets. I am delighted to share that we have recently won our first Data as a Service client, a leading global insurer in Asia validating our product market fit. Another undeniable force shaping the future of the industry is artificial intelligence. 80% of wealth and asset managers see disruptive technologies such as AI as a key driver of their growth. However, in a highly regulated industry, the adoption of AI needs to be done with care and with caution.
That is exactly what our solution, ALTO AI Studio, delivers. It is our one-stop agentic AI and big data platform. It is LLM agnostic, secure, and has data models that are pre-configured for the asset management industry. In practical terms, it provides access to Gen AI capability like ChatGPT and Mistral, but in a ring-fenced, secure environment within the client's own organization so that their proprietary data is protected. It also includes AI-powered coding tools and agentic AI capability with agent orchestration enabled, allowing users to create their own agents. It is capable of handling large volumes of structured and unstructured public and internal proprietary data. The solution has been developed and tested within Amundi for over two years, and all of our 5,600 Amundi employees now have access to it.
To give you an example, our compliance assistant uses AI to perform all of the first-level checks on marketing documents for compliance errors, so it results in a streamlined process. This has significantly reduced the number of irregularities that ever reach the second level of legal and compliance verification, and we've increased the volume of documents that we can check. Now we are ready to offer ALTO AI Studio to the market. I'm pleased to confirm that we are already in the final stage of negotiations with a client in Europe to provide it to them. Our second pillar is leveraging our acquisition of Axigo to maximize the significant opportunity within the wealth management segment, which is predicted to double in size by 2030. Banks and wealth managers are facing challenges from all angles.
Advancements in technology have increased the expectations from digital channels and, at the same time, created new competitors completely. These firms need to balance serving the clients that they have with building a model fit for the future against the backdrop of a heavily regulated environment. Many firms, particularly in advisory, feel behind the curve on technology adoption, and they're seeking flexible and scalable solutions. These solutions must be modular, end-to-end platforms that deliver efficiency but support top-line growth. Amundi Technology is well positioned to respond to this demand and to capture the opportunity. Our acquisition of a leading wealth tech company, Axigo, last year enabled us to really accelerate the development of our wealth business. We've brought together our complementary platforms to create a broader, more flexible, and scalable offering built on the modular first.
As Guillaume said earlier, the API-first wealth stack that you talked about, that we can tailor to our clients' needs. We integrated a highly experienced team across development, professional services, sales, who all share our core focus on innovation. Now we have more than 250 experts across the wealth management value chain, and we have strengthened our customer and geographical coverage, penetrating German-speaking markets and acquiring a tier-one client base. Combining this technology with Amundi's investment expertise, global reach creates a unique proposition in the wealth space, one that can scale across Europe and Asia and capture the market share as the demand grows. Our third pillar is about better harnessing group synergies. Being part of the Amundi Group is an unparalleled strength and a competitive advantage, first in what we can offer to our clients, but also in our network and our reach.
Our first differentiator is our market-leading investment expertise. This knowledge drives our technology roadmap, and it allows us to bring together leading investment expertise with cutting-edge technology solutions. We're seeing increased demand from clients for bundled solutions, and over the last few years, we've demonstrated our success in offering our technology platforms alongside our core investment solutions. A great example of that is we've just been selected by a Nordic client who wanted one single strategic partner covering both investment services and wealth technology. We are combining our technology with our business services, and I'm delighted to share that last week we also signed a contract for ALTO Investment and Integrated Data Management Services with Kempen Van Lanschot, one of the oldest financial institutions in the Netherlands, founded in 1737.
We can bring all of these together, all three, as we did for a large French player who selected us last year to provide investment services, middle office, and of course, ALTO Investment. Our second differentiator, the power and reach of the Amundi Group. Amundi is present in 35 countries, over 1,600 clients. This gives us clear advantages that we will continue to build on, including an established global distribution ecosystem that most of our technology peers would take years to build or simply would never be able to create. Local market knowledge and experience, meaning we can deliver technology solutions that meet specific local market needs and regulations. We have a globally recognized and trusted brand as Europe's largest asset manager and a major player in Asia.
Bringing these two differentiators together gives us an edge, an edge that I am confident will help us to deliver our plan over the next three years and double our revenues. That is all from me. Back to Guillaume for the closing remarks.
Thank you, Ben. Thank you. Then it is Antoine Cardinal. Would you allow me to come back to French accent? Please. Thank you. Thank you. It is more comfortable for me. Sorry, guys. To summarize, Amundi Technology is a major differentiator in our industry, a true tech offer with inbuilt asset management DNA. Our native SaaS solution has proven itself to be solid, to be secure, to be innovative. We have the capacity to combine technology with service à la carte. Finally, our tech solutions are built on a powerful European infrastructure.
Over the past four years, we have established Amundi Technology in the market. More importantly, we have built a machine designed for scale. Our strong investment in AI since 2023, our experience in data management, have enabled us to design AI and data solutions that will provide even more opportunities. I am convinced Amundi Technology will be the preferred solution for the savings and investment ecosystem across Europe and Asia. Be a strong growth engine for Amundi and will, as Valérie said, double revenues by 2028. Enable us to build durable solutions for Amundi clients and keep us at the top of the industry. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Guillaume and Ben, for this exciting Entente Cordiale .
I'm told that we are right on schedule almost to the second, which in a way is a small illustration of Amundi Technology and definitely a great achievement from our very great colleagues from the corporate communication team. It's now time to take a break. We will have about 15 minutes. For those online, we will run a video, well, different videos, in fact. They are not actually part of a presentation, but they are obviously interesting, so you can have a look at them. You will have a countdown that will tell you when the meeting will resume. In the meantime, let's take a break. Welcome back. Now the moment that you've all been waiting for. Nicolas Calcoen, our Deputy CEO, will detail our financial targets and go through the financial trajectory that we are expecting for the next three years.
He will be followed directly by Valérie for concluding remarks. Nicolas, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Cyril, and welcome back to all of you. You've heard from Valérie about our Invest for the Future strategy on how it will drive growth and long-term industry leadership. You've heard from our business leaders on some of our strategic ambitions. Valérie also shared our key financial targets. As a reminder, these were an adjusted EPS of more than EUR 7 in 2028, a cost-income ratio of below 56% in 2028, and a dividend payout ratio of more than 65% across the plan. You also heard our key capital management principles, built on a continued focus on value-creating external growth opportunities. My presentation today will focus on unpacking each of these in a bit more detail. Before I do, let me outline the main assumptions behind our targets.
Consistent with all previous strategic plans, these targets do not take into account any positive market effect. In fact, they are built with a neutral market and foreign exchange assumptions. We have updated our key sensitivities to market conditions, including foreign exchange, as listed on the slide. The other key point is that we will deliver our financial trajectory in all potential UniCredit scenarios. As announced at Q3, these targets reflect the uncertain contribution from this agreement from mid-2027 onwards when it comes to maturity. We remain, of course, fully committed to serving our clients with the same high standards and are ready to create value for all parties beyond 2027. We do not know if it will be renewed or under what conditions.
If you look at our past trajectory, Amundi has consistently delivered average EPS growth of more than 5% per year from our highly diversified sources of revenue. We are fully confident in our ability to return to these levels. With this in mind, let's take a closer look at our financial trajectory, starting with our 2028 adjusted EPS target of more than EUR 7. This target is above 2024 levels and reflects our confidence to more than compensate for any unit credit outcome. This resilience comes from our growing diversification in terms of clients, expertise, and geographies, combined with our market-leading cost efficiency. This results in lower volatility and higher predictability of earnings. We will deliver strong and sustained underlying growth of 5% from our other business lines. This underlying growth will be demonstrated by the more than EUR 300 billion in net inflows across our strategic priorities.
It will be supported by higher technology and service revenues, which represent additional income, less sensitive to market factors. We will complement this underlying growth with other levers, such as the positive effect of our strategic partnership with ICG. This will include, of course, the revenue synergies that will grow over time, and also the equity-accounted contribution from our stake. You should bear in mind that we will progressively build this stake over the next year or so. Therefore, you should not expect this contribution to be booked before the second half of 2026, with a full year effect only in 2027. Overall, the partnership will deliver an EPS accretion of around 5% over the plan. The share buyback we have announced today will also deliver a positive benefit on the EPS. Moving to the cost-income ratio next, we are committing to be below 56% in 2028.
This means a continued commitment to industry-leading levels and reflects our continued and robust cost control. Excluding UniCredit revenues, we will deliver a positive Jaws effect, meaning revenue growth will be above cost growth. This target also reflects a commitment to significant investment in future growth beyond 2028, reinforcing our leadership vis-à-vis key industry trends. This is indeed the most effective way to return to historic levels of growth in the future. We will support our cost-income ratio by accelerating the optimization of our operating model. First, we are streamlining our organization. This includes the plans launched in the second quarter, which will deliver EUR 40 million in annual savings from 2026 onwards. A key project was the merger of our CPR and BFT affiliates, which has been successfully completed in just a few months. Another example is the simplification of our European multi-asset setup.
Thanks to this, we can respond more efficiently to evolving client needs and best leverage it for our new retirement business line. This plan is just the start of what we can achieve, and there are several other opportunities we can activate. Next, we will optimize our processes to improve our cost base and deliver greater client value. Here, we will take full advantage of the latest technologies, including, of course, artificial intelligence. As Ben explained, we have successfully developed ALTO Studio, our fully secure GenAI platform, which is now 101% available to our teams. Twenty AI applications have already been rolled out to date, accelerating delivery across multiple areas such as RFP answering, marketing material compliance review, and IT development. Going forward, AI will allow us to optimize our processes while creating real client value and reducing external spend.
By 2028, we will scale 50 AI applications, including expanded agent capabilities across areas like content development, research, or client management. Thanks to these major efficiency gains, we can redirect significant resources to our strategic growth priorities. This will include shifting 10% of our total workforce to these areas. This will also mean investing a total of EUR 800 million, an increase of 30% on the previous plan. Around 40% of our investment will be directed to technology. This will allow us to grow our ALTO offer for Amundi and for our clients. 60% will then be aimed at our other growth priorities, with a focus on talent and enhancing our marketing activities. This means clients accelerating diversification in retirement and digital distribution. This means geographies supporting our major Asian growth engine, our expansion in Northern Europe, and our reinforced presence in high-potential regions.
This means solutions, including investment in our industry-leading ETF platform. All of these factors will reinforce our strong positioning and our financial trajectory to 2028 and beyond. Moving now to shareholder returns. Under our Strategic Ambitions 2025 plan, we committed on a payout ratio of more than 65%, which we have successfully delivered. We have indeed returned around EUR 200 million to shareholders through additional dividends above this target. We also committed to use our excess capital for value-creating acquisitions or to return it to shareholders. We deployed around EUR 500 million on two external growth opportunities, Alpha Associates and Axigo. As a reminder, the Victory Capital transaction did not consume any capital. On top of that, our new strategic partnership with ICG will strengthen our private asset offer and create shareholder value.
As this transaction involves a purchase of around 10% stake on the market, the exact transaction value is yet to be determined. This will anyway leave some surplus, and as confirmed, we will return this excess capital to shareholders by share buyback. I can confirm that the total figure will be above EUR 300 million. We will provide more information when we announce our full year results in February. Going forward, we will maintain this attractive dividend policy of a payout ratio of 60% or above under a new plan. We will, once again, prioritize external growth opportunities when it comes to using excess capital. Our strategic priorities for M&A remain the same. This means distribution and client-based acquisition, expertise reinforcement, and technology and services. We will consider all types of deals, majority, minority, joint ventures, when we find the right opportunities that meet our strict criteria.
This means transactions that present manageable execution risk, are earning equitative, and provide a return on investment of at least 10% within three years. We will, therefore, maintain an appropriate level of capital for opportunities, and we retain the flexibility to return excess to shareholders. In conclusion, the 2028 target we are presenting today demonstrates the resilience of our business model. This resilience comes from our growing diversification in terms of clients, expertise, and geographies. We will deliver strong underlying growth with more than EUR 300 million in net inflows across our strategic priorities and the doubling of our technology revenues. We maintain our commitment to market-leading cost efficiency, reflecting our continued and robust cost control. We will achieve this while investing in the future and delivering, once again, attractive shareholders' returns. That's all for me.
Let me hand back to Valérie for some closing remarks before we start the Q&A. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Nicolas. In conclusion, our Invest for the Future 2028 plan will drive growth and value creation in the next three years, as well as our long-term leadership beyond 2028. Our commitment is to deliver, yet again, a clear earnings trajectory, industry-leading cost efficiency, attractive shareholder returns, and a defined capital management strategy. Our confidence to achieve this comes from the fact that we are the European, sustainable, and tech-savvy global leader. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you, Nicolas. Thank you, Valérie. It is now time to open our Q&A session. We will obviously take questions from the room as well as online. Again, please raise your hand if you want to ask a question.
There will be hostesses that will just hand you a mic here. If you are online, please also raise your hand virtually, and I will open your mic in due course. We'll start with questions from the room. Difficult to know who to start with. Let's start with Jacques Henry.
That's right. Thanks a lot, Cyril. Thank you. It was a lot of fun. Three questions from me, please. The first one on technology. After the first plan, the idea was to go to EUR 125 million of revenues. You did not quite get there, close to EUR 95 million. Is the fact that you're extending the product and the distribution a little bit what makes you confident you'll get to the double revenue? Are you confident that with that now, this extension of the business, you'll actually get there and feed that? The second question is on the excess capital.
How to calculate it? Is it still on the basis of a CT1 requirement? Just for us to have a look. You are mentioning flexibility about it. Are you going to revisit it, for example, every year? Is it more like an end of the plan? We see what's left, and then we address it. Lastly, I can't resist. As a binational, there's a lot of Brits in the management. That was actually a lot of fun. You are actually fitting the U.K. market quite a bit with the agreement with ICG. I was almost about to ask the British members, how is it to work with the French? That's the last question. Thank you.
Good. Thank you, Jacques Henry. On technology, in our previous plan, we had several targets, a lot of them, actually.
As you could see, a number of them, we achieved them one year in advance. Some of them were not completely at target in 2025. What is really important for me is the trend. We built, I am sure that you saw it by listening to Guillaume and Ben, we built a very strong technology company now, which is credible, with a wide number of clients, more importantly, in a large number of countries, because each new country is complicated to open. We are now much more experienced than we were four years ago. I am fully confident that the team will reach the targets for 2028.
Regarding excess capital, indeed, our capital position and the excess capital position is calculated by comparison with the regulatory requirement. As you know very well, we are regulated as a credit institution. It is calculated based on the solvency requirement.
As you know as well, our business doesn't consume much capital for organic growth. The position in capital will be progressively rebuilt. It will be used as a priority for M&A because we are confident that there will be many opportunities and we have the capacity to capture that. We don't want to accumulate capital. We keep this flexibility to re-earn it if we don't see M&A opportunities at the horizon. That was a third question. It's not for me, obviously. I don't know if Ben wants to.
Ben, how is it to work with French people? It was a joke, but I think it's important that you answer it.
Yes, we do. It was not that much of a joke.
Dominic actually can answer as well, even if he's the more.
He's slightly on the spot now.
A few things. When I joined, my deputy, who is very, very French, very strong technologist, said to me, "I like to work hard and I like to have fun." I thought, "Okay, I'm going to get along here." It has been the warmest, welcoming place that I've ever experienced. I will say I have had to learn a lot more about British and French history than I ever anticipated, as you saw at the start of the presentation. On a serious note, it's warm and welcoming and a lot of fun. We work hard. Entente cordiale again.
Question from Hubert from Bank of America. Oh, no, sorry. Nick has the mic. Nick Herman from Citigroup. You're next, Hubert.
Thank you. It's Nicholas Hermann from Citi. Three questions, if I may, please.
If I look at consensus expectations for earnings this year, then your EUR 7 earnings per share target implies a compound EPS growth between 25% and 28% of 3%. I guess if we exclude, I guess what you're trying to suggest is, though, that you have market effects. Maybe there's some upside to buybacks as well. I guess, therefore, that should be higher than 3%. I guess the question I'm really trying to get at here is, excluding, if you were to take out UniCredit, what is the earnings per share growth that your targets are suggesting? And the ongoing net flow rate of the business, please. The second question, just coming back to capital return. I think you had about EUR 1.3 billion of surplus capital. Maybe it will be EUR 1.3 billion-EUR 1.4 billion year-end.
My understanding is that you are promising to return all of that to shareholders. Is that correct? Or do you intend to keep some of that for M&A? I guess just a related question, why not do more than EUR 300 million initially? The final question is on profitability and cost income. I guess historically, it seems somewhat challenging to improve your cost income ratio beyond perhaps the low 50s, which is obviously mid-50s is still market-leading, given the need to invest for growth. With cost income ratio now in the mid-50s, how should we think about the marginal cost income ratio over and above your targets, assuming there is some market appreciation and what have you? Thank you.
Okay. I'm going to let Nicolas answer, but I would like to make one point as an introduction.
The figures we give you today, we are committing on them, and we are very confident that we will reach them. Take the EUR 7 as a floor, take the 57% as a cap. Do you want to change anything?
Fifty-six? Fifty-six.
I said 57. Sorry, my mistake. Fifty-six. I am not changing the figures now. Fifty-six is the cap. You can be sure that whatever happens, whatever the scenario, we will commit on that. We will deliver that. Nicolas, you will deliver.
Not much to add on these two points. EUR 7 under 56%, there are.
Sorry, sorry.
A minimum for one of them and a maximum for the other. Let's not mix them.
Maybe to complement on your question regarding the growth trajectory excluding UniCredit, what we believe, and that's consistent with what we have done in the past and what we will deliver, we are confident we deliver, is to deliver an underlying organic growth of 5% in average per year. It will be in the next years complemented by the positive impact of the acquisition of the stake and the partnership more globally with ICG and by the share buyback. Your second question on capital return and the share buyback, we cannot give a precise number for the main reason is that first, we have to build the position and build the stake in ICG. It's starting, so we don't know what will be the exact value. That's why we are committing for the share buyback to be at least EUR 300 million.
We talk to you more when we announce our result in February to give you a precise number for the share buyback.
Once again, EUR 300 million is the floor.
It is the floor.
Okay. Hubert, Bank of America.
Great. Thanks. It is Hubert Lam from Bank of America. I have got three questions. Firstly, on the flows of EUR 300 billion, how should we think about fee margin there? I just wonder if it should be accretive or not to the existing fee margin base you have starting off. Second question is on, yeah, sorry, go back to the cost income ratio. I know the 56% is the top, the cap, the max. I know you are using that number to protect yourself against the UniCredit outflows. If we exclude UniCredit, how should we think about cost income? Because previously, you were guided for 53% or lower.
Is that still kind of the guidance, or do you think you can do better without excluding UniCredit outflows? Lastly, on, again, UniCredit, I think recently your tone has changed around the relationship. Now you are thinking more openly about them exiting in 2027. Just wondering where we are in terms of your discussions with them. Has the negotiation changed? Previously, you talked about how beneficial the relationship was in terms of you providing them with services and how value add you have. Just wondering if that has changed or if their demands are just a little bit more extreme now than before.
No, no. I mean, nothing has changed in our daily relationship. We are completely and fully committed to, I am looking at Cynthia here, who is in charge of the group.
We are absolutely fully committed to go on servicing UniCredit networks and UniCredit clients at the highest level of service. What I can tell you is that what we told you for months and years is that our partnership with UniCredit runs until July 2027. It may or may not be renewed under conditions that we honestly do not know as of today. As this date is in the middle of our plan, it was obvious for us that we have to commit on figures that we can really commit on. This is a part on which, for the time being, we do not know. That was the idea of committing on these figures, which are, as you understood, a floor. Nothing has changed in our daily and real life with UniCredit.
We will go on being committed until 2027 and hopefully after that date.
Regarding your first question on the fee margin on the flows, we do not have a target or an objective in terms of blended margin. We know that margins are under pressure in our industry. It is not new. It has been the case in the past. It will continue. Nothing specific to Amundi. The average margin going forward at Amundi will depend on the various pace of growth of our various businesses. What we know is that, and what we commit on, is that there will be growth. This growth will be profitable, and it will result in the objectives that we just gave you today. Regarding the cost income ratio and the impact of UniCredit, as you know, Amundi is an integrated company. We work globally.
We have limited costs associated to a specific client, whether UniCredit or any other one. What we can say is we'll continuously work on our efficiency. In addition, I can also confirm that excluding UniCredit revenues, there will be a positive jaws effect, meaning revenues growing faster than costs.
Okay. Next question from Arno, BNP Paribas.
Good afternoon. I've got three questions, please. If I can start with Intermediate Capital, I was wondering if you could give a bit more detail on the financials. There's, I assume, a revenue share with Intermediate Capital on these new Evergreen products. I was wondering if you could give us an idea of how that split might look like, if any. My second question is with regard to Société Générale. Clearly, it's quite a small contribution to your revenue.
Whatever the outcome has limited impact on your earnings. I was just wondering if you could give a bit more detail on the conditions of that renewal. Did you see a step down in the revenue margin? Did you see a change in the obligation for them to sell your products? Did they have more flexibility in open architecture? My third question is with regards to SBI IPO of that business. You've talked to, I mean, quite a lot of Asia and the opportunities there. I assume there's no intention to sell down. This is just you participating in the IPO. I might be putting words in your mouth, but I'd like to hear it from you. Thank you.
Okay. The first one is on ICG deal. We are not, I mean, this deal, as you understood, is really win-win.
We're going to be able to deliver to our wealth clients strong expertise with fantastic track records and with an exclusivity on all their products, which are Evergreen as of today. Mostly direct lending and secondaries. I'm not going to go into the details of the agreement. What I can tell you is that there will be strong synergies of revenues. We are very confident today to tell you that we are certain that the return on investment will be above 10% in the next three years. We have a lot of things to build between now and the next three years. Once again, very comfortable and very confident. Société Générale, the principles of the agreements are the same, similar to the previous one. The renegotiation has a marginal effect on our revenues.
If you remember it well, we are the main provider of investment solutions for Société Générale wealth clients, and we will remain them. We are the sole partner for the management of the insurance mandate of Société Générale, and we will remain the sole partner. Société Générale is actually our partner for employee savings in France. We use Société Générale Securities Services as one of our primary providers in terms of custody. Nothing has changed on all these fronts. Once again, the principles of the new agreements are similar, and the renegotiation has a marginal impact on our revenues. Last but not least, SBI, we are very happy. You may have heard about it. In 2021, this was already a project. Because of the COVID, we had to postpone this project together with SBI.
We are very happy to see this fantastic joint venture that we may grow for 20 years now, being listed on the market. Of course, it will unlock the value of this company. This is obviously good. I'm sure that you will look at it. It will help the company to grow in the future. We are listing only 10% of the company today, which is great because we want to go on participating to the growth of this fantastic company thanks to the growth of India. As simple as that.
A good illustration of that is that the 10% we are listing will be brought by the two partners in proportion of their today's stake in the 3.7%. 67% exactly from SBI.
We will take our next question from the online participants. Angelique, I'm opening your mic.
I think you can start speaking now and ask your questions.
Good afternoon. Thank you so much for taking my questions. Just four for me, please. First of all, can you split the EUR 100 billion cumulative net flows from retirement into flows you expect to see in retail versus the institutional channel? Perhaps if you can also tell us within retail how much of that would be passive. Another question with regards to the EUR 150 billion net flows that you expect to collect in Asia. How much of that do you expect to come from joint ventures over the next three years? With regards to third-party retail distributor, the third-party retail distributor channel, can you also give us perhaps an indication of the flows that you expect to see over the period 2025-2028 there?
It has obviously been a very strong lever for your growth between 2021 and 2025. I just wanted to understand what sort of flows the third-party retail channel could contribute in the new plan. Last but not least, with regards to the Evergreen partnership with ICG, can you give us some color on the distribution channels where those two Evergreen funds will be distributed when they launch next year, please? Thank you very much.
Last question was?
Which distribution channels will the Evergreen funds with ICG be distributed to?
Okay. I'll take the question. I'll start with the question on ICG, and I will answer the figures if we have an answer. Probably not for all of them. On ICG, the idea is to do several things.
The first one, it's not answering your question on the wealth side, but it's on the institutional side. We have already an agreement with Crédit Agricole Assurance, who as you know is a huge insurance company, the largest in France, to invest in their direct lending expertise over the next five years. This is going to be, I would say, the first and already discussed transaction. They will invest through Amundi, of course. Second, on the wealth side, we will as well first use what they have on the shelf, the Evergreen products. We will distribute them to all the networks we work with. I remind you, we have 600 distributors around the world. A lot of clients we can go and see and propose the Evergreen products of ICG. We have an exclusivity on these ones.
This includes, of course, our own group retail networks, as I was mentioning in my introductory speech, the private banks of Crédit Agricole Group and all the wealth client segments of Crédit Agricole Group as well, but also the 600 other clients with which we work worldwide. We have the project to build together new solutions, probably blended solutions thanks to Vincent's team, especially in the retirement area where we will have solutions which are both liquid but including a part of an illiquid expertise. All these projects are coming in the next few months. Of course, we will put them on the market step by step and once again propose them to the clients who are interested.
As far as the questions around flows are concerned, of course, I cannot provide very detail because it will go forward during the next year.
What I can say is that we are expecting to have EUR 100 billion in retirement. It will be both through retail and institutional channels. It will be in Europe and Asia, probably more in Europe than in Asia, but on both continents. We can say that we plan EUR 75 billion in retail and institutional channels in Asia. As far as the Asian objective, as far as the flows in Asia, EUR 150 billion, it will be, as in the past, both coming from our joint ventures and from our, I would say, direct presence in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and I am forgetting many of them, but more will probably come. Third-party distribution will grow as well. At the end of the day, what is important is on all these growth levers, we plan to have EUR 300 billion in flows globally during this plan.
It's coming from these various levers. Of course, maybe I should specify that these EUR 300 billion is without double counting, meaning that if we have inflows with a retirement client in Asia on passive management, it will not count three times, but only one.
Only once.
Okay. Do we have other questions? None online, I think. In the room, maybe? Yes. One question, Sharad, Deutsche Bank.
Thank you. Thank you for taking questions. I have three. Firstly, sorry to come back on the buyback. I'm interested in knowing the comparison of ROI, return on investment, on buybacks versus those on M&A. You said EUR 300 million is the minimum. What I want to understand is, are you open to using the entire excess capital ex ICG for buybacks? Is there a regulatory constraint for that? That's the first one. The second is on Italy.
Again, assuming that the UniCredit distribution does not get renewed in 2027, what options are available to make up for this loss? Are you open to stepping up distribution through Banco BPM? Is a minority stake purchase in Anima? Are you open to doing it? Can you elaborate on options such as those? The final one is on India. My understanding is that listing rules in India entail a 25% free float within five years. Can you clarify? How should we expect the stake sales in India other than the 3.7% stake that you would sell next year? The last one related to that, I compute a capital gain of around EUR 300 million from the 3.7% stake that you would sell in India, assuming a $12 billion IPO valuation. What would be the uses of it? Thank you.
Hello. I will answer the first part of India.
You're right about the rules to reach 25%, but it can be either in five years or in ten years according to the size of the IPO. We believe, to be confirmed, that the size of our IPO will let us ten years to reach this 25%. We will do it step by step, very, I would say, taking the whole length once again to make sure we go on benefiting as much as possible from the growth of this company. On Italy, one thing I would like to remind, we manage today more than EUR 200 billion, EUR 210 billion if I'm right, for Italian clients. Only one-third of these EUR 210 billion are managed for UniCredit. We are working in Italy for more than 200 clients.
We are already working today in Italy with nearly all distributors and a huge number of institutional clients from the smallest to the largest Italian clients. Italy, whatever happens and whatever the scenario, is and remains a strategic country for us, and we'll go on growing for sure. I forgot the first question, which was on share buyback. Share buyback for you.
I think the first question was the comparative return of share buyback versus M&A. Historically, we have made operation acquisition with a very significant return on investment above 10%. For example, the last ones were more around 12%. I think when we find this kind of acquisition, it makes a lot of sense in the interest of shareholders to do M&A. Your second question was regarding the coming share buyback.
Yes, we intend to return the excess capital after the transaction of ICG. Of course, we have to take the regulatory constraint coming from our solvency requirement with probably a small buffer for security, but the intention is to distribute what is available.
I think Jacques Henry had a pressing. Okay. Another question by Nick, Citi Group.
Hello again. I guess ICG is well known as being an asset manager, a very high-quality asset manager for institutional investors, managing closed-end funds. Its move into semi-liquid strategies is much more recent. I guess catering to the many, many wealth clients that your network will provide access to will also provide an additional level of require an additional level of operational sophistication. I guess is there also room for you to kind of, I guess, provide your ALTO solutions, your technology solutions to ICG to facilitate that process?
I guess also consistent with thinking about how BlackRock is using Aladdin with Partners Group as part of its own joint solution. Thank you.
That's a very good question. Very concretely, the structure will be managed within Amundi. By definition, we will use ALTO. ICG is perfectly managing their expertise, their portfolio. The same portfolio managers will manage the expertise that we will onboard and structure under a retail format to be able to distribute them to our wealth clients. We will take within Amundi the structuration process of all wealth solutions that we will distribute from ICG.
We actually have one question from the Zoom webinar. Johann Schultz, you can open your mic now. You can open your mic. You can open your mic.
Thanks. Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions from my side. Maybe a bit more taking our level of view.
What's your thinking in terms of your competitive advantage relative to your large U.S. competitors in the passive/ETF space? It's a space that's becoming more concentrated, as you well know, and what do you think is the longer-term outlook there? Secondly, with the rapid expansion that we are seeing in digital distribution on the wealth side, what's been your experience in terms of longevity, client churn there? I would assume it's a space that can be potentially subject to quite a bit of churn. What measures can you take to increase persistency? Thanks.
Any answer to the second question? On the first one, we have the same advantages on the ETF space than on any other space compared to our global American competitors. The first one is that we are European.
A number of our clients, whether in Europe or in Asia, want to have a very large global leading European asset managers. They want to have our views. They want to have some of their money in Europe. They choose us because we are European. Second, in terms of, I would say that the second big advantage we have, competitive advantage we have today, and once again, only on the ETF space, but globally, is the fact that we are very invested in sustainable finance. We have always been. We will always be one very responsible asset manager. This is one of the reasons why we are today winning a lot of mandates against our American competitors.
Fannie, you want to answer on the wealth spot? Digital distribution, as we disclosed into our capital markets in June, actually is a booming industry.
You obviously have some neobrokers, but you have more and more actors focusing on the longer term on the value chain, totally focusing on savings, on retirement, offering you monthly auto-enrollment schemes, which makes it accurate, as you might have heard from our retirement and also from our wealth introduction. I mean, we've got many stakes in Europe to save for retirement, to develop as well some ecosystems. Digitalization is enabling some financial inclusion and thus actually having more actors to participate into long-term savings. All in all, yes, there is a bit of trading account on one side, but the vast majority is for savings and long-term.
Okay. I think we have a question from Benoît from Odo.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. A few questions on my side. Maybe the first one coming back on ICG.
I can understand that it will generate a lot of revenue synergies and your investment will achieve your profitability target. Did you really need to buy this stake of almost 10% on ICG to cement this partnership, or would you have been able to make this partnership without this investment? The second question is regarding maybe cumulative excess capital generation over the next plan. There could be some earnout on recent acquisitions. What is your expectation in terms of excess capital generation over the next three years? I have a small technical question, sorry, regarding your minimum EUR 7 EPS figures for 2028. You are assuming a tax rate similar to 2024, but there has been an extra tax charge for French corporate on 2025, which applies also on 2025 earnings. Just technically to understand if this is taken or not into account on your EPS minimum target.
Maybe last question, if I may, did you not comment on ESG fund and ESG, which was a growth driver for the group over the last plan? I do not know if you can elaborate a little bit on that. Thank you.
Sure. I will take the first and the last question and let you do the two others, Nicolas. On the ESG, as I was just mentioning, it is a huge competitive advantage for us. We have not changed anything. We will not change anything. In our plan, I think I explained in my speech, we commit on having today we have EUR 280 billion under management in net zero solutions all over the world. When we receive RFPs from our European clients, 90% of them are including at least one criteria related to responsible investment. We commit to keep the largest worldwide investment solution range of products.
We are working, I'm looking at Jean-Jacques, on blended finance solutions. We are working on climate solutions again, of course. We are working on biodiversity, which is a nascent topic, but more and more our clients are requesting us to work on it. And we have, as you know, a very strong research team on all these topics. You can be sure. We are as well, I should have said. We have a very strong stewardship team, which is recognized from our clients and very much used. We do not change anything, not only because it is in our DNA, but also because we are convinced and very confident that it will bring more growth in the future. On ICG, we could have discussed a partnership without investing in ICG. We have a very strong common DNA.
We have discussed for a long time, so we know each other very well. We are incredibly focused on performance and client's interest on both sides. That is what is important for us. We could, but we felt that it was really important to cement this long-term partnership, 10-year partnership through this participation. We are really thrilled to have been able to announce it this morning.
Regarding the question on capital rate generation, as I was mentioning, we are listed as a credit institution, but our activity organically generates very little new capital requirements. Basically, going forward, we can rebuild a strong capital position. Almost all of the annual results that are not distributed contribute to building our capital position going forward. Your third question was about taxation, if I remember well.
You know there's a budget debate, but we are in the middle of it. We don't know where it will go, so it's too early to say what impact it may have.
Thank you. We have the next question from the webinar. Again, a follow-up question from Angeliki.
Angeliki, I think you can open your mic. Yes, thank you for taking my follow-up question. Just a clarification on the EPS floor, as you called it, of EUR 7, which includes all potential scenarios on UniCredit. I just wanted to understand, does that assume that in 2028, there are zero revenues from UniCredit under the worst-case scenario? Or realistically, if we were to just look at the partnership, it ends in the middle of 2027. Even if they wanted to not continue, there would still be some AUM in runoff.
I'm just effectively trying to understand if there is zero contribution from UniCredit in that floor or if there is still some, perhaps, in 2028. Do you have a buyback assumption within the floor of the EUR 7? Is that the minimum of EUR 300? Thank you.
We do have a share buyback assumption, the one we will be doing next year. Regarding the first part of the question, it is really in all UniCredit scenarios, even a scenario where there is almost no AUM left in 2028.
There is a follow-up question from Arno, BNP Paribas.
I've got a quick follow-up on Angeliki's question, actually. All scenarios include minimal or no revenues from UniCredit. In that scenario, how much cost are you taking out? If you can give us a framework to think about it, that could be quite helpful.
I just wanted to follow up as well on any tax implications. How do you think about how should we think about capital gains tax from the sale of the Indian stake or the IPO and tax implications? Thanks.
On the cost side, I think that Nicolas already answered. Once again, our commitment today is really to a cost income ratio below 56%. The other commitment we have is to have a positive Jaws effect excluding UniCredit. We will manage our cost as we always did, and I think you can give us credit for that, following us for a long time, step by step, according to what is going on, and balancing cleverly things between our investment and our cost efficiency.
Regarding tax on capital gain or whatever, you are referring to income tax or?
When [Abeline] sold their stake, there was a meaningful capital gains tax, and part of it was through Mauritius Holding, and they had a very different tax. I'm just wondering how it was.
I haven't had time to understand that.
Sorry. It's not a tax.
Potentially, there's quite a substantial capital gains tax implication from the IPO, so I'm just wondering what that can be. From the IPO? Yes, from the IPO of the Indian stake.
There will be withholding tax in India, and I think it's around 14%.
Thank you.
Yes, 14%. And there's no double taxation between India and France. We are not taxed again in France.
Any other question from either of the room? Nothing from the webinar? No? Okay. I think that ends the Q&A session and our Capital Markets Day. Thank you very much for attending. It's been a pleasure having you.
Obviously, the whole financial communication team is available if you have any follow-up questions, digesting the 80 slides of this presentation and any additional remark that you might have. We would be very pleased to have any feedback from the way we organized and the way this thing has been dealt with and with the targets. Thank you very much again, and hoping to see you soon.
Thank you.