AXA Investment Managers, the €864bn fund management unit of the French insurance group, plans to establish a new business unit to take advantage of the current boom in private markets.

AXA IM said the new division, which would be called AXA IM Prime, would house the private markets fund of fund businesses that the wider Axa Group has built over the past nine years in conjunction with AXA IM Alts — the asset manager's alternatives business division.