The investment philosophy
The aim of Oddo AM is to anticipate major trends and create high value added-products. Investment expertises cover major asset classes, sectors, market capitalisations and geographic areas.Expert in value creation, Oddo AM’s investment philosophy is to provide investors with original investments strategies.
Our first source of value creation is stock-picking of investments, securities of funds. Portfolio construction relies more on a stock’s specific risks and opportunities than on style, sector or country-based allocation. The focus is on a bottom-up approach. However, when a portfolio is balanced, the top-down approach also makes a large contribution.
Our second source of value creation is the long term approach adopted by the investment teams. This conviction management entails strong investment choices that drive outperformance over time.
Key products are European mid caps, Convertibles bonds and thematic stock picking funds (family owned stocks, listed Reits, M&A / asset restructuring).
The external managed volumes
No externalisation of our mandates.
The focus
Founded in 1987, Oddo AM is a fully-owned subsidiary of Oddo &Cie and based in Paris.
Oddo & Cie is an independent, family-owned, French financial group, founded in 1849. With a headcount of over 765, the Group stands out thanks to its ownership structure as 42% of its capital is held by the Oddo family, 30% by employees and 20% by Allianz. This partnership, based on the Group’s business model, is the guarantee of its employees´ implication in the long term.
Oddo Asset Management (Oddo AM) is a first class independent asset management company in Europe.
Our aim is to deliver the best possible service to clients:
- Performance, embedding long-term value creation at the heart of our investment processes,
- Transparency, across a simple and focused fund range within a strong risk management framework,
- Innovation is at the heart of our development. New investment strategies are launched each year to seize market opportunities or meet the needs of our clients and partners.
Oddo Asset Management provides private and institutional clients conviction-driven investment strategies covering major asset classes open funds and dedicated mandates. Investments are subject to rigorous and permanent risk controls at every level.
Work sequences between the fund management and the analysts
All Oddo AM portfolio managers are also analysts and they work together as a team. They also use sell-side research from different brokers on a pull basis.
Assets under Management
The current assets under management amount to €12 billion, divided between retail clients (41%) and institutional clients (59%).
The sales and distribution channels
Oddo AM’s funds are mainly distributed through 3 sales channels:
Distribution and institutional clients
The 10 sales people team adress distribution clients such as private banks, multimanagers, family offices, wealth managers, platforms and institutional clients such as public/corporate pension funds, foundations, insurance companies. The Pan-Europe coverage team serves 350 clients and includes a dedicated client servicing.
Distribution through an IFA (Independent Financial Advisor) network throughout France
The IFA network which distributes Oddo AM’s funds directly or through life insurance products has more than 850 IFA partners, sales exclusively dedicated to assisting them and a dedicated wealth engineering team.
Direct distribution to clients of OBP (Oddo Banque Privée)
Oddo Banque Privée (Private Banking) is one of the privileged distributors of Oddo AM’s products. OBP employs 80 people, with 35 of them exclusively dedicated to client relations. It has 11,000 family clients and EUR 3Bn under management. Its main business lines are:
• Mandated management
• Advisory management
• Wealth engineering
• Credit & life Insurance
All these sales channels are important and on an equal footing since the current assets under management are well balanced between retail clients (41%) and institutional clients (59%).
Current and future investment trends
We believe 2010 will be a year of contrasted recovery that will swing between optimism and nervousness. To get the most out of markets which will probably be choppy, we can rely on two of our traditional strong points, namely our proactive investment teams and the close proximity our clients enjoy with our sales teams.
1. Investment management
Our future development will focus on continuing to streamline the fund range -by reducing the number of funds and repositioning products- and driving innovation that will seek to capture major market trends and adapt products to client requirements. These projects will depend on optimising the tools we have developed and adapting the investment process. Emphasis will be placed on our diversified management range; following the overhaul of its investment process, the range should start to capitalise on the good performance posted in 2009.
2. International development
To meet ambitious targets for new inflows, we started this year to cover actively the Austrian, German and Italian market. This will complement our presence in countries like Switzerland, Spain, Benelux and the Middle East where we are already active since several years.
3. Marketing & Communication
Our marketing and communication departments will focus on driving innovation and product range rationalisation, facilitating sales growth and producing tools and back-up adapted to client needs.
4. Operations
At the operating level, strategic projects for 2010 will benefit in full from solutions that have been in place for several years. As a result, operations will accompany international growth in managing flows and procedures relating to control, approval and reporting. Elsewhere, optimising our services to IFAs will be a major challenge in the coming year and will involve amongst other things the overhaul of Extranet and an improvement in our back office.
Facts & Figures
- Date of foundation: Oddo Asset Management was created in 1987
- Assets under Management: €12 billion
- Number of funds:
Oddo AM’s assets under management are allocated into 70 funds (50 funds are open mutual funds).
- Number of employees:
The company employs 79 professionals divided between:
- Fund manager:
Our team is composed of 32 analysts-portfolio managers, assigned into 9 teams. These teams are organized into specialized areas of expertise which constantly share their know-how. The organisation of the investment teams is designed to ensure business continuity (working in pairs, transversal respect of good practice…).Investment teams fall under the responsibility of Thierry Deheuvels, Deputy Managing Director of Oddo AM and Chief Investment Officer. Thierry Deheuvels has more than 30 years experience in investment management and is in charge of all Oddo AM’s investment departments
- Research department:
All Oddo AM portfolio managers are also analysts and they work together as a team. They also use sell-side research from different brokers on a pull basis. - Largest fund:
Our largest fund is Oddo Avenir Europe. At the end of July 2010 its assets under management amounted to €675 billion. - Currently most successful fund:
Our currently most successful fund is Oddo Avenir Europe. This fund universe is mainly composed of European small and mid size companies with a market capitalization ranging from €150 millions to €10 billion that offer solid growth prospect on the long run.
The key of our success can be explained by our investment philosophy. Indeed, our Mid Cap strategy is based on conviction stock-picking of the best performing mid-cap stocks which are capable of creating value and have the cash flow to finance their long term expansion. We only invest in international companies.
Our three Mid Cap analysts-portfolio managers work hand in hand, decisions are collegial and this long-term management is successful since 1992 as demonstrated by the strong performance vs. benchmark indices.
