Eric Heleine

The partnership will see Groupama AM combine its team of traders with Amundi Intermediation to help achieve its ambitions.

Alongside this, Groupama AM will gain access to a wider range of activity with improved negotiating power, allowing the firm to better serve its clients and optimise its performance, the pair said.

Meanwhile, Amundi Intermediation’s international teams – which consist of over 60 staff – will be strengthened by the addition of Groupama AM’s traders.

“With Amundi Intermediation, we share the conviction that execution is changing radically with rapid and global digitalisation,” said Eric Heleine, head of the intermediation desk and overlay management at Groupama Asset Management. 

“[…] By making the most of advances in AI and data science, Groupama Asset Management and Amundi Intermediation aspire to define new standards of excellence in transaction execution, while strengthening the teams’ ability to respond quickly and precisely to market challenges.”

Read more: Fireside Friday with… Groupama Asset Management’s Eric Heleine

Groupama AM will interface its existing technology architecture with Amundi Technology’s ALTO ecosystem, which is used by Amundi Intermediation teams. As a result, Groupama AM will have increased execution, innovation and investment capacity to coincide with the digital transition of its business.

“We are delighted with this partnership with Groupama AM, a leading player, which will enable us to continue to develop our capabilities and provide Groupama AM with a comprehensive, robust and innovative system to offer end investors the best possible conditions,” said Christophe Kieffer, chief executive of Amundi Intermediation.

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The system will replace existing multi-asset processes and will be used to deliver a common set of tools and processes to Amundi’s 60 dealer clients globally for cross asset trading.

“Moving from a single asset-class specific EMS to a centralised, scalable multi-asset solution is a topic dominating our discussions with clients, prospects and consultant firms,” FlexTrade System’s managing director for EMEA, Andy Mahoney, told The TRADE.

“The desire to automate and electronify fixed income trading is certainly a key component of the trend, but also bringing additional asset classes such as derivatives or FX onto the EMS shows that firms are thinking further ahead now to deliver a streamlined and technology-driven agile approach to cross-asset trading.”

Following the integration, Amundi Intermédiation’s dealing teams will gain access to various automation tools to streamline workflows, including FlexAlgowheel across asset classes.

The move will also boost Amundi Intermédiation’s capabilities in fixed income to further its efforts to automate and electronify its bond execution operations. Once integrated, dealing teams will also gain access to FlexTrade’s Fixed Income Smart Order Router (FISOR) to expand automation using consolidated pre-trade data.

The deal follows the expansion of the FlexTRADER EMS by FlexTrade in recent months. In May, FlexTrade Systems confirmed plans to launch artificial intelligence-driven (AI) functionality within its multi-asset solution.

At the time of the announcement, FlexTrade said the new interface layer is designed to revolutionise how trading teams interact with their data and trading technology solutions.

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The AMF confirmed it had fined Amundi Asset Management €25 million, its dealing division Amundi Intermediation €7 million and Tullett Prebon €5 million after finding they had manipulated the price on the Euro Stoxx 50 Futures (FESX) market.

Ludovic Delion, a manager at Amundi Asset Management, Gregory Saey, a trader at Amundi Intermediation and Thomas Vignon, a broker at Tullett Prebon, have all been issued with 10-year bans by the French authority for their role in the alleged activity.

According to the AMF’s statement, the three market participants made use of wash trades to manipulate prices and engaged in ‘cherry picking’, where orders are executed and then allocated to a fund depending on the gain or loss, at the expense of an identical fund managed on behalf of an institutional client.

An analyst note from Morningstar stated that “the atypical volume and repeated nature of the transactions caused clients a prejudice of €48.1 million”. Amundi has since reimbursed the client prior to the AMF’s decision.

The analyst note added that while Amundi recognises the AMF’s ruling has merit, the firm disputes claims of market manipulation and has appealed the decision.

The AMF continued that Amundi Asset Management, Amundi Intermediation, Delion and Saey had breached regulatory obligations related to recording and pre-allocating orders, monitoring best execution, managing conflicts of interest, exercising internal controls and detecting compliance risks.

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