Promising development

Exane is expanding its third-party asset management business via its subsidiary Exane Asset Management, a company registered with the AMF since April 2001. Specialising in long/short equity funds, Exane Asset Management manages a complementary range of eight alternative funds, including five sector funds, two general funds and one internal fund of funds.

The Exane Asset Management team comprises around twenty people, including ten fund managers, recruited both internally (from equity sales, equity research, proprietary trading) and externally, on the basis of their specialist skills. All of them are highly experienced in equity markets. Exane Asset Management's alternative funds are chiefly aimed at major international institutional accounts, corporate accounts and funds of funds.

In addition, Exane Asset Management manages a range of CPPI products and convertible bond index funds for all types of investors, which are marketed by the Exane Derivatives team.

A niche position in long/short equity, founded on the group's longstanding expertise

Drawing on the recurrent returns of its funds, the asset management business has rapidly expanded. In five years, Exane Asset Management has become one of the leading French players in long/short equity.

Highlights
Inflows rose sharply over the year. In total, assets under management doubled in 2006 to cross the EUR1bn threshold. And all this from the EUR30m that the group invested at end-2003.

In 2006, Pléiade 5 and Templiers, two new funds that opened during the first semester, rapidly took off and finished the year with assets under management of around EUR150M each. Pléiade 5 is an internal fund of funds, combining all of the long/short funds in the range; and Templiers is a fund specialising in financial assets.

Gulliver, the biggest fund in the range, with EUR472m of assets under management at end-2006, did not accept any new subscriptions during much of the year. It was partially reopened in 2007 with the target of raising the funds under management to EUR600m. Characterised by its low historic volatility, the fund boasts a good track record spanning more than five years.