What is a TPM in France? The job, the fee, the limits

When a Head of Distribution in Frankfurt or London first hears "you should talk to a TPM in Paris", the question that follows is usually not asked out loud: what exactly would I be paying for? The term covers very different businesses, from a single former salesperson with an address book to a firm with a team, a press network and a research process. So here is a plain description of the job, the way it is done in France, with the parts that are rarely written down.

The short definition

A third-party marketer is an independent firm that represents an asset manager to investors in a market where the manager has no sales team of its own. It does not manage money, it does not hold client assets, and it does not replace the manager's own compliance. It does what a local distribution team would do — find the buyers, get the meetings, adapt the story, follow the due diligence through to a listing — on behalf of a manager that has decided not to build that team, or not yet.

In France the profession has its own association, the AFTPM, which brings together the firms doing this work and sets common practice standards. Membership is not a licence, but it tells you the firm is known to its peers and has signed up to their code.

What a TPM actually does, week to week

The visible part is the meetings. Behind them there are four pieces of work. A TPM that only does the first one is selling you meetings; the other three are what get you listed.

Mapping the buyers. Before the first call, a list of who in France can actually hold your strategy: which insurers run unit-linked lists in your asset class, which multi-managers and funds of funds have a slot, which private banks' selection units review what, and when. A foreign manager's CRM usually has the right logos and the wrong people. The map is what turns "the French market" into thirty names with a reason to talk to you this quarter.

Getting and running the meetings. Introductions to selectors who take the call because of who is calling, preparation of the portfolio manager, presence in the room, and the follow-up that nobody in the home office has time to do: the notes, the questions answered within days, the second meeting.

Adapting the story. In France you sell to a selector, who sells to a banker or an adviser, who sells to a client. The institutional deck that works in Zurich does not survive the second step. Rewriting it for the people downstream — in French, with French references, in the format the distributor's sales team will actually use — is part of the job, and it is the part most often skipped.

The press and the due diligence. French selectors read a small number of French-language publications, and a manager they have never read about starts every meeting at a disadvantage. A TPM that knows those editors gets your strategy in front of them. And when the due-diligence questionnaire arrives — it always does, and it is long — the TPM is the one making sure it comes back complete and on time, because a late answer is read as a sign of how the relationship will be managed later.

How a TPM is paid

The usual structure in France has two parts.

A monthly retainer covers the running costs of representing you: travel, marketing material, tools, the time spent on mapping and preparation before any money is raised. At Alforis the minimum commitment is twelve months, because nothing meaningful happens in France in less.

A success fee comes on top: a share of the management fees the manager earns on the assets the TPM brings in, paid for as long as those assets stay invested. This is where most of the remuneration sits. It aligns the two sides: the TPM earns well only if the assets stay.

The detail that matters is less the percentage than the definitions: which investors count as introduced by the TPM, for how long the fee runs on them, and what happens to it if the agreement ends. A clear written list of introduced investors, updated as the work goes, avoids most disputes before they start.

What to check before you sign

Five questions do most of the work.

Which buyers do they actually see? Ask for the type of investors met in the past year in your asset class, not a list of logos. A firm strong with private banks may be weak with insurers, and the reverse.

Under which regulatory status do they operate? Marketing funds to French investors is a regulated activity. Ask how the firm is authorised to do it, and check the answer on the relevant public register before signing.

How many managers do they represent in your strategy? Two managers in the same niche presented to the same selector compete with each other. Ask how they handle it.

What will you receive, and how often? A written report after each meeting and a regular pipeline review are the minimum. If the reporting is vague before the contract, it will not improve after.

Who will be in the room? The person who sold you the mandate should be the person who meets your buyers. A selector gives a meeting for the relationship, not for the logo: a senior third-party marketer comes to the meetings personally and does not hand them to a junior once the contract is signed.

When a TPM is the wrong answer

A TPM is not the right tool for every manager.

If you are large enough to carry a Paris office for ten years, an office gives you things a partner cannot: a permanent local brand and a team that works only for you. If your portfolio managers will not travel to Paris several times a year, or your materials cannot be adapted, or your fund has no share class a French distributor can use, a TPM will spend your retainer explaining your absences. And if what you need is only platform access for demand that already exists, an operations provider will do.

The right moment for a TPM is when France matters to your plan, the strategy has something to say to French buyers, and you want the first year spent building relationships rather than recruiting a team.

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Michel Marques is the founder of Alforis Finance, a Paris-based third-party marketing firm and member of the AFTPM. He spent 20 years in French banking and asset management, the last eight at the asset management arm of Crédit Mutuel, where he built the CGP and insurer partnerships and then ran the EMTN distribution business for institutional clients and private banks across France, Belgium and Luxembourg. He launched Alforis in 2025.

Related: [What entering France actually costs] · [The French institutional buyer map]