ETF special: Amundi ETF's Valérie Baudson

Joanne Young talks to Valérie Baudson, Amundi ETF managing director, about the company’s recent UK listing and her ambitions for the business.

Q. How did you prepare to list in the UK?
A. The actual process of listing is pretty similar in any European country. The only significant difference, perhaps, is that of currency. In London we chose to list all our products in sterling.

Investor appetite tends to vary according to what type of client is using ETFs within that country. In France most ETF investors are professionals doing asset allocation so the range of choice is quite wide, while in Switzerland it is mostly private banks and you see a lot more non-domestic, non-European exposures. We have found all types of clients are well-represented in London – asset managers and institutions, as well as retail – so this is definitely one of the most challenging markets in Europe.

Q. Are you looking to target retail investors?
A. For the time being we are focusing on institutional investors. That is the case right across Europe simply because that is where the market is. The UK retail base will increase once RDR arrives, and in that sense our timing has been spot on, but that was not the driving force behind the move. Our development plan has been very clear right from the inception of the business in 2008.

We always intended to develop the business in France during the first year, and then widen our reach across continental Europe in 2010. That is what we have done: we now have over 300 listings across Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, among others. We always knew the last major step was to launch in London, but it is very good news to see the RDR arriving at the same time.

Q. How do you plan to grow the UK business?
A. We are launching another 17 ETFs in early June. We expect to get up to 50 ETFs listed on the LSE within the next few months. The UK market is definitely one of the most interesting ones in Europe, and our aim has been to provide as many products as possible, as quickly as possible. Elsewhere, we will continue to list new and innovative ETFs across the European business.

We are also working on a major marketing campaign to increase awareness of Amundi in London as a large, established asset manager – we are actually the eighth largest in the world. We expect to hire at least two salespersons dedicated to ETFs in the UK, who will leverage the presence of our current Amundi sales team.

Q. Are there any asset classes or strategies that Amundi ETF is yet to cover?
A. We have more than 100 individual products now, covering equity, fixed income, commodities, money market, so I would not say we are missing anything obvious. I could not have said that even a year ago, but we really are offering a full range to our clients now.

We have very regular discussions with the investors themselves, because that is always where the best ideas for new products originate. Just to give an example, our World ex Europe ETF was prompted by a European investor who wanted a way of taking exposure to the rest of the world without interfering with his established European investments. That was really simple to construct, but has been a huge success.