Swiss investors continue to favour smaller wealth managers
Swiss investors continue to invest more of their money with smaller wealth managers and cantonal banks as their disillusionment with some of the bigger Swiss providers like UBS persists, the latest numbers from data provider Lipper reveal.
Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, Bank Sarasin, Zurich Financial Services and Swisscanto Holdings saw strong inflows in May. Geneva-based LODH topped the inflow league table in the month, attracting SFr241m.
Outflows at UBS continued, with approximately SFr1bn leaving the bank’s funds during May, although the pace of outflow shows signs of slowing. In the six months since the end of May, UBS has lost around SFr12.9bn.
“There is still a general trend towards investors favouring the smaller managers,” said Otto Kober, head of research in Switzerland for Lipper.
However, Pictet, which saw strong inflows in March, registered an outflow of SFr1.2bn in April and May.
Credit Suisse recorded a huge inflow of SFr3.3bn in April, only to see an outflow of SFr3.6bn in May.
Kober felt this sudden shift of money at the Zurich-based bank was due to “window dressing” by a big institutional investor.
“Someone probably needed to cover a position in Swiss equities for accounting reasons, but then shifted the money rapidly out,” he said.
In terms of asset classes, Swiss investors continue to favour money market funds and real estate funds gained in popularity in May.
Excluding the huge outflow from Credit Suisse funds in May, equity outflows have eased, but bond funds continue to see large outflows.
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