The French asset management giant announced a change of leadership as part of its 2020 results.
After 14 years as head of Amundi, Yves Perrier will hand over the reins to Valérie Baudson (pictured below), who will take over as CEO in May 2021, the firm announced on Wednesday alongside its full-year results, which showed a fall in revenues, profits and investor inflows in 2020.
Perrier has overseen asset management operations at Crédit Agricole Group since 2007 and was behind the creation of Amundi in 2010, which merged Société Générale’s and Crédit Agricole’s respective money-management units.
Under Perrier's leadership, Amundi has become Europe's largest asset manager. It made acquisitions a pillar of its strategy to compete with giants like Vanguard, snapping up Italian asset manager Pioneer from Unicredit in 2016. In June 2020, Amundi wrapped a 430 million euro ($500 million) deal for Sabadell’s asset management activities. Perrier also oversaw the firm's push into China through the creation of a subsidiary with Bank of China.
Senior Leader
Baudson, who joined Amundi 14 years ago, is currently CEO of CPR Asset Management and a member of the Amundi General Coordination Committee. She also heads the Division dedicated to distributors and private banking clients of the Amundi Group worldwide and supervises the Amundi subsidiaries in Germany and Spain.
She began her career in 1995 at Banque Indosuez, where she managed international audit assignments. She then joined Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux, the European brokerage subsidiary of the Crédit Agricole Group, as general secretary and then marketing director for Europe.
Strong Fourth Quarter
Amundi's adjusted net income for the past year stood at €962 million, 4.7 percent lower than 2019. The company came close to meeting its goal of doubling its net income since its IPO.
The company showed a strong performance in the fourth quarter of the year, posting a net income of €288 million – an increase of 5.1 percent on the last quarter of 2019 and up 22.5 percent from Q3 2020. This is the highest quarterly income since Amundi was created.
The firm has more than €1.7 trillion ($2.12 trillion) in assets under management. In Asia, the Group has more than €300 billion in assets under management.
