First Anniversary and … “still alive”
We are proud to announce the first anniversary of Wealth Solutions Partners, a decisive milestone we have reached with many achievements and plenty of exciting projects to develop.
Antonio Carballo, senior fund analyst and myself, former global head of Fund Strategy, both at HSBC Private Bank, have launched the Geneva-based boutique Wealth Solutions Partners in July 2016. We have been joined in 2017 by Philippe Darbellay, former senior fund analyst at Pictet Wealth Management.
Over the course of the past 12 months we have set the foundation of our company, shaping our services to the needs of our customers; the private banks, independent wealth managers and family offices. We have also spent time maintaining the communication with our vast network of fund managers, but also discovering new talents in active portfolio management.
We have been busy attending one-one meetings with fund portfolio managers, and portfolio specialists (> 130 meetings), and participating to roadshows, conferences and seminars in Geneva, in Switzerland and in Europe (> 150 events).
We have already more than 120 asset managers in our database, – and the number is increasing every day -, which we know the expertise, we can source investment ideas, and in most case have already made a due diligence, or recommend funds.
Of course, we have been engaged in developing relationship with our prospective customers, meetings private banks, independent wealth managers and family offices in Geneva, in the Suisse Romande region, in Zurich, but we also met prospects from Europe or from the Middle-East.
We had to explain our value proposition in detail. The B2B asset management services for wealth management remains a brand-new model in Switzerland. However, it gives us the opportunity to know each other’s better, to gain good understanding of present but also future needs and the constraints, and to answer to them.
The forthcoming implementation of Mifid II will trigger many changes in the way to do the business in wealth management, including an increase in the use of outsourcing for tasks linked to investments. We aim to position Wealth Solutions Partners ahead of that trend.
We have started to develop enriching relations that, in some instances, leaded to contracts with highly promising partners (see news: Successes to celebrate at WSP-Key Partnership).
Regarding fund selection, we have partnered with research platforms to help in covering long-only, alternative UCITS, smart beta, ETFs and SRI strategies. Along with our proprietary database of asset managers and funds, it helps us monitoring new entrants in the asset management industry and focusing on niche asset classes not yet covered by our customers. We aim to identify hidden gems, but in a risk controlled framework.
We have achieved the creation of a fund recommended list that includes already close to 100 funds in core and satellite asset classes. The potential to extend this list is great as we have already more than 30 funds in our Watch list, likely candidates for recommendation, and we have the potential to draw on our partners’ list if needed.
The future looks very promising. We aim to leverage the positive momentum we have created with our customers by engaging further with the independent wealth managers and the family offices. To that aim we are developing a dedicated access-free fund selection list that is planned to be launched in October this year. Stay tuned!
We want also to promote our portfolio advisory and portfolio analysis services specifically to family offices, along with the WSP model portfolios which have recorded robust alpha since launch.
With private banks we want to follow closely on their repositioning, to be ready to offer services tailored to their new operating models whenever appropriate.
Further next year, as planned we will extend abroad in the Middle-East where we have established a strong network gained from previous jobs and during our tenure at HSBC.
To conclude on this particular date to celebrate, we reiterate our commitment to bring to the Swiss investment professionals and private banks community our deep knowledge and extensive experience in delivering cost effective fund selection and advisory services in an open architecture model.
In the current complex world, investment professionals seek more and more to establish partnerships with knowledgeable, well experienced specialists able to connect them to the world’s best solutions to pursue and grow their business successfully. We want to be one of those partners delivering with quality and consistency independent innovative solutions.
Hervé Croset
Managing Partner