Italian asset manager Azimut is setting up a unit in the Republic as part of an agreement with Italian bank UniCredit. The arrangement will allow UniCredit to bring back in-house a fee-yielding business a decade after parting ways with its Dublin-based Pioneer asset management arm.
Under the accord, whose financial terms were not disclosed, Azimut will set up an asset manager of which UniCredit can acquire control in five years at the latest. Azimut’s Irish asset management company will develop products to be distributed through UniCredit’s network in Italy on a non-exclusive basis.
Azimut chairman Pietro Giuliani said two of the company’s chief executives had a meeting scheduled on Monday with Irish regulators to discuss the project.
In an effort to rebuild UniCredit’s depleted capital reserves, then UniCredit chief executive Jean Pierre Mustier in 2017 sold Pioneer to Amundi, signing a partnership that expires in 2027.
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Sources had said Mr Mustier’s successor, Andrea Orcel, had tried in vain to renegotiate the terms of the accord with the French asset manager and relations between the two partners had soured.
“This accord gives UniCredit the chance to re-internalise a fundamental piece of our asset management business,” Mr Orcel told a press conference on Friday. Asked about the implications of the call option in the Azimut deal for the Amundi partnership, Mr Orcel did not rule out UniCredit seeking other partners after 2027.
Shares in Azimut rose 5 per cent following the letter of intent, topping Italy’s blue-chip index. UniCredit slipped 0.3 per cent.
The launch of the first funds for Italian clients is expected in the second half of 2023. Mr Orcel said the accord would start having visible effects on the bank’s earnings only in a few years’ time.
Mr Giuliani said Azimut, which raises the majority of the assets it manages abroad, would see for a few years a shift back towards Italian clients.
“That’s a price we’re happy to pay to build an important, international asset manager in Italy,” he said, adding Azimut would retain a minority stake in the Irish firm when UniCredit acquires the majority of it. The call option can be exercised earlier subject to circumstances which the two companies declined to detail. – Reuters
