After working at State Street, Fidelity and Schroders, Fannie Wurtz joined Amundi in 2011. After managing the development of the ETF, Index and Smart Beta business, she has been Head of Distribution & Private Banking and the ETF business & Passive Management since 2021, and also oversees Amundi’s activities in Asia (excluding Japan). As a member of the Executive Board, she works closely with Valérie Baudson (Group CEO). We had the opportunity to interview him during his recent visit to Brussels.
What does passive management represent at Amundi?
Fannie Wurtz : “Passive management represents €420 billion (of the €2.2 trillion managed by Amundi), of which €270 billion is invested through more than 300 ETFs. Trackers replicate indices at a generally attractive cost, with liquidity increasing as the underlying index becomes more liquid. Their ease of use and transparency are key factors in their adoption by an increasing number of investors, particularly in Europe, where volumes have grown strongly in recent years. In the ETF market, 2024 saw significant flows into US equities (almost $100 billion). Since the beginning of 2025, the trend has been towards Europe, with over $13 billion flowing into European equities in January and February alone. At the moment, European clients who invest in European equities are motivated in particular by questions of intrinsic value, while Asians sometimes have broader considerations of asset diversification”.
ETFs have come under fire for their alleged role in the rise of the Magnificent Seven. Are they justified?
F.W.: “We anticipated the problems associated with the weight of the Magnificent Seven in the indices, which is why we launched an ETF in 2024 that provides exposure to the US market while excluding mega-caps (Amundi MSCI USA Ex Mega Cap UCITS ETF). This has enabled us to respond to the wishes of clients who wanted to isolate large caps from the rest of the portfolio, as their weight was becoming too great. At Amundi, we have the opportunity to innovate and rapidly launch ETFs tailored to the specific needs of some of our clients, with a local offering that can be adapted to a very large number of countries.
What criteria determine in which region a fund will be domiciled?
F.W.: “We are a major asset management company, with a wide range of vehicles governed by French, Luxembourg and Irish law. The aim is to offer our customers a choice, because they all have constraints, preferences or biases when it comes to asset allocation. Sometimes, there may also be different tax regimes, which may justify domiciling a fund under a specific flag. The aim is always to offer customers a choice of the best medium to suit their portfolio construction constraints”.
Do you use a lot of partnerships with the banking sector?
F.W.: “Amundi is an asset manager built on close ties with banks, and we have a strong DNA of partnerships with numerous partner banking networks in France and around the world. As Amundi has grown, our distribution partnerships have diversified: we now work with more than 600 distributors. At distribution level, a major trend in recent years has been the sharp reduction (of around 25%) in the number of managers selected by networks operating in open architecture. Banks and distributors are working with fewer asset managers, but will have much more demanding requirements, so that they can be supported in both active and passive management, for example, or in private assets”.
Support goes beyond simply distributing funds?
F.W.: Yes We can, of course, offer tailor-made products, but we can also provide technological support, marketing support, training for advisers and help with the roll-out of a product in several countries. We also see the need for technological support to automate certain tasks and relieve advisers of administrative tasks, which also motivated us to recently acquire Aixigo at the end of 2024, a German WealthTech that already offered a large number of technological services used by more than 60,000 advisers at leading financial institutions, and whose solutions we are now offering to our customers.”
A major trend in recent months has been the use of private assets as a source of diversification and return..
F.W.: “There is extremely strong demand within the industry for real assets, which has been fuelled by the long period of extremely low rates and has led investors to seek diversification of sources of return. We also have very substantial needs to finance the real economy, and in particular to finance massive infrastructure plans linked to our energy, climate and digital transitions, estimated at €750 billion a year for Europe alone. The asset management sector acts as a transmission belt, matching these substantial financing needs with European savings. In this environment, the development of new solutions that are more open to retail (ELTIF 2.0) is a good thing, but we obviously need to ensure that these solutions are well understood by customers, as they are less liquid products. So you need to have a long investment horizon”.
Are customers aware of the risks associated with this type of product?
F.W.: While we are seeing some progress on the subjects of financial knowledge and education in Europe, some countries are still lagging behind the OECD average and efforts must be continued. We must therefore continue to develop financial education to ensure that customers fully understand the specific features of the product. Of course, we work with distributors to ensure that the right instrument is offered to the right customers in the right format for their needs.
How important is Asia for Amundi?
F.W.: “Assets under management in this region reached 469 billion euros at the end of 2024, with faster growth than in other regions thanks to more favourable economic growth and demographics, leading to faster growth in financial assets than in the rest of the world. At Amundi, this growth is largely due to a joint venture we have with State Bank of India, with assets under management reaching €292 billion at the end of 2024, up 23% year-on-year. Of the 2.2 trillion euros we manage globally, 17% is managed through joint ventures, whose model fits in well with our DNA of wanting to build offers in collaboration with local players”.
