Credit Agricole, Societe Generale join hands to form Amundi

French banks Credit Agricole SA and Societe Generale SA's combined asset management arm Amundi will start operations on 1 January 2010, the banks said in a press release yesterday.

With more than 650 billion euros assets under management, Amundi will rank third in Europe and eighth worldwide, the banks said.

Amunde was formed with the acquisition of majority of SocGen's European and Asian asset management operations by Credit Agricole.

Once the capital contributions to the new entity are complete, Amundi Group will, as planned, be 75 per cent owned by Credit Agricole and 25 per cent by Societe Generale.

As the new entity would be one of the top ten asset management businesses in the world, the European Commission reviewed the transaction to see if it breached competition rules.

It concluded that although the new business would be a major player in the market in France, the transaction did not raise competition concerns.