Christophe Fritsch promoted to lead alternative credit at AXA IM Alts

Christophe Fritsch, a well-known executive in the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, given his long history working at AXA Investment Managers with a focus on the sector, has now been promoted to Global Head of Alternative Credit at the asset manager.

Fritsch founded the AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) Insurance Linked Securities team back in 2008 and led its development as Head of ILS for a number of years.

As of the end of 2021, the ILS team which sat within the AXA Structured Finance (AXA SF) division of AXA IM, had grown its ILS and reinsurance linked assets under management to almost US $1.1 billion.

AXA IM Alts, the alternative investments arm of AXA IM that has around €188 billion of assets under management, announced a new structure this week.

The asset manager has reorganised into a new business line organisational structure, with activities split across: Real Estate, Infrastructure, Alternative Credit, Natural Capital & Impact Investments and its Chorus hedge fund platform.

Each business line will be supported by the Client Group Alts, a dedicated unit in charge of investor relations for the AXA IM Alts businesses.

The idea is to better reflect the businesses growth in the alternatives space and organise each team so that leaders can drive further growth within their respective units.

Which is where Christophe Fritsch comes in, as part of the re-organisation of the Alts operation sees Fritsch now promoted to become Global Head of Alternative Credit.

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) will remain under Fritsch’s oversight, as part of the Alternative Credit business at AXA IM Alts.

Fritsch will also sit on a newly created AXA IM Alts Management Board.

As a business line leader, Fritsch will be tasked with continuing to build out the alternative credit teams and drive growth and value generation for clients, through the deployment of AXA IM’s investment convictions and executing its ESG roadmap.

This will include the integration of ESG factors in the investment process across the alternative credit investment strategies under Fritsch’s remit.

Isabelle Scemama, Global Head of AXA IM Alts, commented on the reorganisation, “The business has gone from strength to strength since we combined our alternative expertise under one roof two years ago. This evolution of our organisation represents the logical next stage of our plans to continue accelerating the profitable growth of our business while becoming more even more agile and attuned to the evolving needs of our clients.

“By further simplifying our structure, we can better leverage our expertise to focus on our business convictions and ESG commitments while empowering our leaders to grow and enhance our client offering.”

Fritsch was Head of ILS Team at AXA IM between 2008 and late 2014, before moving into increasing senior structured finance leadership roles at the investment manager.