The headquarters of Societe General in Paris. SocGen is seeking to raise as much as $1.9bn from the sale of its 20% stake in Amundi Group as part of an initial public offering in Europe’s biggest asset manager.
Bloomberg
London
Societe Generale is seeking to raise as much as €1.75bn ($1.9bn) from the sale of its 20% stake in Amundi Group as part of an initial public offering in Europe’s biggest asset manager.
Amundi, co-owned by French banks Societe Generale and Credit Agricole, initiated the IPO this week, setting the price at between €42 and €52.50 apiece. That would give the Paris-based company a market value of as much as €8.8bn, more than any European investment firm outside the UK Schroders’market cap is £8.05bn ($12.45bn).
Amundi is testing investor appetite after global stock markets rebounded in October from their worst quarterly performance since 2011. Amundi is trying to lure investors with a forecast of higher profits and dividends.
“This operation will be of benefit to Societe Generale’s capital,” said Jerome Forneris, who helps manage $9bn at Banque Martin Maurel in Marseille and owns shares in both Societe Generale and Credit Agricole.
“The market environment is more favorable today than two months ago,” he said.
For Societe Generale, the IPO is a way to bolster its capital buffers as regulators tighten rules to make the financial system safer. The French bank has said it expects the IPO to add about 20 basis points to its core capital level.
Credit Agricole plans to sell about 2% of its stake to a unit of Agricultural Bank of China as part of the IPO process, Amundi said in a statement. The offering ends November 11 and shares in Amundi will start trading on the Paris stock market on November 12.
Amundi had €954bn under management at the end of June. The company plans to become a “natural alternative to big US fund managers,” Chief Executive Officer Yves Perrier said in October. The IPO’s “starting point is Societe Generale’s desire to cash in on its stake, which is completely natural and fitting with the shareholder’s pact,” he said.
Amundi forecast for €515mn to €535mn in net income this year would value it at as much as 17 times annual profit. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has a market value close to 18 times the $3.27bn profit estimated for this year by 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Credit Agricole will retain a stake of 74.6% to 77.6% of Amundi after the IPO, the company said in a separate statement.
