AXA Investment Managers’ real assets business raised €3.7 bn of capital for real estate equity strategies (excluding debt investing) in 2020.
Some €2.1 bn of this new firepower was for its real estate open ended funds which now include logistics and residential sector focused vehicles as well as the largest, its five-year-old flagship pan-European core diversified strategy, CoRE Europe.
The real assets business also enjoyed €4bn of net inflows to its real assets debt strategies which includes real estate and infrastructure.
The real assets division is part of AXA IM Alts which was created last year when AXA IM reorganised. It split investment management into AXA IM Core (publicly-traded fixed income plus equities) and bundled into AXA IM Alts all real estate and private real estate credit as well as infrastructure, other alternative private credit, private equity and hedge funds.
All AXA IM Alts comes under former real assets head Isabelle Scemama.
Despite Covid and a difficult Q2 last year, Alts’ AUM climbed to €159 bn by the end of the year, a rise of 14%.
The success reflects the demand from investors in a persistent low interest rate environment, bearing out Scemama’s view when the crisis struck that investors would view it as as a good entry point to alternatives.
Overall, AXA IM Alts saw €12 bn of net inflows of capital and €14.4bn of gross new capital commitments from investors.
Net inflows for the whole investment manager business were up €40 billion, of which €18 billion was third-party inflows. This helped to drive assets under management to a historic high of €858 billion, up by €57 bn compared to the end of 2019. Underlying earnings were up 6% to €279 million, on revenues of €1.3 bn.
Almost two-thirds (€555 bn) of AUM incorporate ESG into the investment process to help achieve risk-adjusted returns. These funds have ESG scoring at all stages of the process.
The division’s executive chairman, Marco Morelli, said: “AXA IM has recorded an excellent performance in 2020, in what has truly been an exceptional and challenging year for the industry, businesses and individuals. Our diversified and global approach based on solid convictions has been instrumental in navigating through the uncertain market environment.’
