GLOBAL - Société Générale Asset Management is to finalise a joint venture agreement with the State Bank of India Fund Manager (SBIFM) by the end of October.

SGAM will provide 77% of the joint venture capital. "It has a great potential," said Philippe Collas, chairman of SGAM. "It's a huge market."

SBI is the largest bank in India with 29% of the retail market but only three percent of the mutual funds market. "So they are interested in matching their retail and their mutual funds’ market share," Collas told IPE.

A memorandum of understanding was signed in July and Collas says he expects to finalise the deal at the end of this month.

"India is now in our Asia network," he said. SGAM is established in Japan having bought Yamaichi AM when the bank failed in 1997 and merging it with Resona AM, the mutual fund business of Resona Bank, Japan's fourth-largest bank.

"This way we have access to Resona's distribution network," Collas added. "Last year we sold four billion dollars of mutual funds net through the network."

SGAM also has a new joint venture with the Industrial Bank of Korea, South Korea's third-largest bank with five million clients. "We have just received the approval of the authorities to set up the as yet unnamed joint venture," Collas added. "It's a 50:50 arrangement."

SGAM also has joint ventures in Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan. "We have a presence in every major Asian market and we don't have to have anything more," he said. "What's of interest is to have access to a distribution channel in each of them."

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