Switzerland’s Independent Asset Management Sector: Do or Die?
Report Summary
Switzerland’s Independent Asset Management Sector: Do or Die?
Swiss IAM sector must refocus on new geographic markets, and collaboration will be key.
London, 17 May 2013 – Specific influences stimulating the Swiss independent asset management (IAM) sector’s rapid growth during the mid-1980s through the mid-2000s--including regulation, independence, and client preferences--are today the same factors that place the IAM sector at the heart of the market’s need to restructure, according to new research from Aite Group.
Analysis by Aite Group shows that the greatest financial danger in Switzerland’s IAM sector is firms with the largest books of undeclared assets (likely mostly Western European clients), those that manage less than CHF250 million in assets, and those that employ less than five staff. Each of these is in the challenge sweet spot.
Aite Group believes that the immense changes to Switzerland’s approach to foreign clients’ tax responsibilities, the shifting regulatory framework, and other macro market shifts such as wealth generation trends mean that the markets targeted by the Swiss IAM sector must significantly change to a greater mix of geographies and developing markets.
A new path of collaboration needs forging. Whether in the form of shared services and platforms, partnership, mergers and acquisitions, and/or the employment of certain insourced or outsourced services such as IT or compliance, the sector must evolve from its independent-at-all-costs approach. There is very likely room for new market entrants to support and enhance this feature of the market, whether they are IAMs, technology providers, shared services suppliers, and even M&A and private equity players.
“For a sector where individual firm independence has been enshrined in the approach to business, a new path of collectivization and collaboration is needed. The Swiss IAM sector is still a valid and attractive one, particularly for any business that has the financial or business tools to support the right kind of market entrants,” says Stephen Wall, senior analyst in wealth management at Aite Group.
This 49-page Impact Report contains 20 figures and 14 tables. Clients of Aite Group's wealth management service can download the report.