Supersize me

THIS week Amundi, one of Europe’s biggest money managers with €950 billion ($1 trillion) of assets, took a step towards becoming bigger still. On November 12th it listed on the Paris stock exchange in the biggest initial public offering of a financial firm in continental Europe since the $2.7 billion flotation in Amsterdam last year of Pershing Square, an American hedge-fund manager. Société Générale, a French bank, is selling its 20% stake to increase capital buffers; Crédit Agricole, another bank and the owner of the rest of Amundi, is selling up to 5%.