When Patrice Blanc joined Fimat in 1989 the company was an upstart, even in France, where it had been formed just three years before at the same time as French futures and options exchange Matif (Marché à Terme International de France).
Blanc, who is now chairman and CEO of Fimat Group, played a central role in the group's international expansion and transformation into a leading global derivatives, commodities, clearing and inter-dealer brokerage. He took over from Alain Closier, now global head of Société Générale's global securities services for investors division, which groups together all of SG's execution, clearing, settlement, custody, and fund administration businesses, of which Fimat is a part.
Today, Fimat employs 1,200 people and is active in 45 derivative exchanges and 12 stock exchanges worldwide. On derivative exchanges it has a global market share of about 5% while it has a global market share in clearing of 6.5%.
Global ambitions
?I joined Fimat at a very interesting time,? says Blanc. ?We always had plans to build a global brokerage, even though we were starting from scratch and our Paris business was still quite small at the time.?
Now 45, Blanc has spent most of his career at Fimat, where he helped spearhead the group's expansion into Latin America by establishing its Brazil office in 1994. ?It would be impossible to do the business we do in Brazil today if we had not taken the decision to be close to our clients back then,? says Blanc. ?Dealing with such a varied customer base is very challenging and it requires you to understand their different needs and cultures. Talking to sugar producers in Brazil or coffee growers in Colombia is very different from talking to hedge fund managers in New York or commodities traders in Tokyo.?
This philosophy is a central part of Fimat's global strategy. Many global derivative houses concentrate their activities in as few centres as possible, often just one for an entire continent, but Fimat operates out of five countries in Europe and five in Asia. In the US, Fimat has offices not just in Chicago and New York but also in Houston and Kansas City. In Canada, it has offices in Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg.
The next stop for Fimat is China, where it hopes to open an office soon.
As well as locating close to its corporate as well as trading clients, Fimat believes in hiring as many locals as possible. Unusually for a French services company, French nationals are not the largest national staff group. Americans make up about half the group's employees and the French are only the fourth biggest national group. This is a reflection of where Fimat makes its money. Today, about 55% of the group's revenue comes from the US. Fimat frequently ranks as the most active trader on the Chicago Board of Trade.
After Brazil, Blanc moved to New York as general manager in 1997 before being appointed chairman and CEO of Fimat USA in July 2000. He had previously lived in the US where he began his career on the floor of CBOT with Drexel Burnham Lambert.
It could be a case of business imitating life or life imitating business, but whichever way around it is, Fimat and Blanc's family seem to share similar cultural identity issues.
Now in Paris, Blanc's two daughters speak Portuguese and miss Brazil greatly. His son, who was born in New York, is, his father says, ?totally American?.
Outward-looking
Of Fimat, Blanc says: ?It is true that if Fimat wasn't owned by a French bank it would probably not be headquartered in Paris, but rather in London or New York. It is not so easy for me to run and manage the business from here. It could happen.?
Blanc himself would rather be back in Brazil. ?It's a great mix of Latin and US business culture,? he says of working in São Paolo. ?It makes for an interesting cocktail of very smart, hard-working people but with a lot of warmth.?
At the moment, however, he has little time for reminiscing. He hasn't even the time to improve his golf handicap of 21. Fimat is busily expanding its prime brokerage business, Fimat Alternative Investment Solutions (Fimat AIS), which has been growing strongly over the past couple of years and which now accounts for about 25% of group revenues of about e440 million ($580 million). Last year Fimat ranked number nine in terms of new prime brokerage mandates in Europe.
Fimat is also busily trying to expand its inter-dealer brokerage business, which at present is confined to the US, to Europe and Asia.