Created in 1995, ABC Arbitrage is specialized in designing arbitrage strategies on most of the European and American financial markets. ABC Arbitrage represents the best-scoring company out of all the businesses included in our SRI portfolios, with a rating of 80/100. What characterizes ABC Arbitrage is a genuine social project, driven by an atypical Chairman and CEO, Dominique Céolin, and shared by his staff.

In 2008, ABC Arbitrage won two star awards from the rating agency Ethifinance for its human capital management and its overall SRI performance.

In 2007, the Group generated 48 million euros in revenues, employing 58 people.

Social : 83/100

Between 1999 and 2001, ABC Arbitrage underwent a phase of growth that was not effectively controlled, resulting in a drastic reduction in its workforce. Learning from this experience, ABC Arbitrage has put in place an exemplary human resources policy, reconciling performance and humanity. An ambitious performance-related bonus project has also been rolled out enabling staff to share in the company’s capital: “horizon 2010” combines the free allocation of shares, stock options and business creator warrants with a profit-sharing scheme (around 20% of the salary).

Looking ahead to 2011, when the plan will mature, the new shares created in this way could represent up to 26% of the share capital, if the Group's results are achieved!

This approach also applies to less qualified employees since the Group wanted all staff to be able to benefit from profit-sharing, even when the headcount is below the regulatory threshold…The mutual is fully financed by the employer. Gender parity in terms of compensation has also been monitored with an in-depth review. Stress linked to market activities has been clearly identified as a professional risk. In this respect, 16 compensatory days leave are awarded to employees, with even more for the most senior members of staff. Lastly, half-yearly appraisals are carried out for all staff (rather than annually as required by the Fillon Law), with a strong commitment by the management team, who have been set an objective to facilitate frequent project developments in line with each person’s aspirations and capabilities.

The turnover rate (5%) is particularly low compared with the industry average, reflecting the quality of the “social climate”. This social climate, in addition to the many benefits described above, stems from the exemplary nature of social dialogue, aimed at preventing the issues seen in the past.

Although it is not required to do so by the regulations in force due to the size of the Group’s companies, ABC has set up an “economic and social unit”, enabling the works council to be representative of all of the Group's members of staff.

Governance : 82/100

ABC Arbitrage operates in a sector – arbitrage – that is highly regulated, particularly in terms of transparency of information. In various areas, the company goes beyond its obligations: in addition to setting up an audit committee in 2006, ABC Arbitrage has created a compensation committee. Furthermore, in terms of control, ABC Arbitrage has a dual risk control structure with two dedicated and independent entities: the Risks and Markets department and the Internal Control and Finance Department, led by a compliance officer.

Lastly, anonymous “whistleblowing” systems have been put in place with a view to escalating information before each meeting to present the financial results in-house.

Societal : 95/100

Since the company only performs own-account management, it does not have any direct liability through its products in relation to clients.

However, the Group has put a quality procedure in place based on a maximum industrialization of processes in order to minimize the risk of human error.

Environment : 62/100

Most of the Group’s environmental impacts are linked to transport, waste processing and paper consumption. Various original initiatives have been taken in this area, even if there is still significant room for improvement.

As far as waste is concerned, ABC ARBITRAGE has been behind the deployment of a selective sorting system in the building where the head office is located. The Group has also forged partnerships with associations specialized in the recycling of obsolete IT equipment.

In terms of paper consumption, the company plans to no longer print out half-year reports, which may be consulted online.

Lastly, use of the train is given priority in France and “company bicycles” (including one electric bike) are made available for trips, the majority of which are within Paris.

Its mission is to encourage contact between researchers in the SRI field and the financial sectors. It represents a pioneering initiative, aimed at building a pilot research section on SRI at international level. The major issues at stake include the development of new models for fine-grained analyses of the impacts of businesses’ social and environmental policies in order to determine their benefits over the medium term. Giving a price to something that is priceless: human capital, know-how and the services provided by our environment (biodiversity).

On the other hand, not taking these dimensions into consideration leads to negative externalities, which must be factored in when calculating economic efficiency.

The FDIR is led jointly by Christian Gollier (Université des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse and IDEI) and Jean-Pierre Ponssard (Economics Department at Ecole Polytechnique), and is able to draw on the expertise of highly qualified and internationally renowned research teams.

To oversee its work, the chair has set up a Steering Committee, chaired by Claude Jouven (former Chairman of the HEC Foundation), which is made up of internationally renowned researchers, including Marcel Boyer (University of Montreal), Julian Franks (London Business School) and Henri Tulkens (Université Catholique de Louvain), as well as a professional from the pension fund industry, Rob Lake (ABP Investments). In addition to the chair’s two co-directors, the committee also includes the following members: Thierry Deheuvels (President of the FDIR Association), Antoine de Salins (Member of the Management Board of FRR), Pascale Sagnier (AXA IM), Eric Borremans (BNP Paribas AM) and Carlos Pardo (Chief Executive of the FDIR Association).