Axa Investment Managers (AXAIM) has become the latest asset manager to launch an outsourced trading service, following in the footsteps of other French asset managers like Amundi and Natixis AM.
The French firm is targetting small and medium sized asset managers that face ongoing pressure on margins amid an increase in operational costs.
Consequently these managers are looking to offload their execution and middle office activities to a larger player rather than continually invest in those functions.
Axa IM considers itself to be one of those larger players, said a spokesman. “We have the critical size and have made the necessary technological investments to enable us to become an aggregator and to recover external mandates on execution and middle office activities,” said the spokesman.
Axa IM has a trading team of roughly 70 people including 10 in derivatives and currently executes orders for Axa IM funds as well as the Axa group companies.
The outsourced service will be an integrated offering of execution, operations and liquidity management,” said Axa IM.
Fellow French firms Amundi and Natixis have offered outsourced trading services for some time but in the last year have rebranded these services – Natixis launched its TradEx Solutions business last year while Amundi unveiled Amundi Technologies earlier this month.
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