Industry structure: asset managers, banks and the end of Credit Suisse

The succession problem of independent asset managers

Independent asset managers form the densest and most characteristic part of Lugano's financial centre. Chapter E.III has traced their history from the fiduciari of the postwar decades to the federal licensing regime of the Financial Institutions Act (FinIA) of 15 June 2018, in force since 1 January 2020 (SR 954.1). The licensing wave is over. On 30 April 2026 Switzerland counted 1,431 licensed asset managers, of which 1,341 were supervised by the four supervisory organisations and 90 directly by FINMA as members of financial groups. The median firm had 3.3 employees, 68 clients and CHF 140 million of assets under management, up from CHF 103 million five years earlier. The whole independent sector managed an estimated CHF 500 billion.¹ Ticino's share of these firms is large, although no official statistic gives a cantonal breakdown. USTAT's count of 874 enterprises in non-bank financial activities with an average of 3.5 full-time equivalents gives an indication of the structure.²

The consolidation that many observers expected when FinIA came into force has not taken place on the predicted scale. The Swiss association of asset managers reported in May 2026 that there had been only about twenty mergers since 2022 and that FINMA had received 61 new licence applications in 2025. Its former president Jean-Pierre Zuber described business succession as the greatest remaining challenge of the industry, because of the age of the owners and the complexity of regulation.³ The problem is especially acute in Lugano, where the generation that founded the firms between the 1970s and the 1990s is reaching retirement and where the client relationships are tied to the person of the founder. FinIA's continuity requirement, discussed in Chapter E.III, forces each small firm to show who will take over if the only qualified manager can no longer act.⁴ It does not solve the economic question of who will buy a firm whose value consists of client relationships that may leave with the founder.

Paths of succession

Four paths are available to the owner of a small Lugano asset manager who wants to retire. The first is an internal succession, in which a younger partner or employee takes over the firm, often with a deferred purchase price paid from future revenue. It works where the successor has had time to build personal relationships with the clients and where the firm is large enough to finance the purchase. The second is a sale to an aggregator. Several groups, some backed by private equity, have acquired small firms and offer their owners a platform for compliance, information technology and reporting.⁵ The third is a merger between firms of similar size, such as the merger of Zest SA and LFG Holding SA announced in June 2022, which created a group with about 700 clients and CHF 2.5 billion of assets under management in Lugano and Zurich. Its executives explained the merger with the rising regulatory requirements and the rising minimum critical mass of assets.⁶ The fourth path is the orderly run-off of the firm, in which the clients are transferred to banks or other managers and the licence is returned.

Each path has consequences for the financial centre. Internal succession and mergers keep the business and the jobs in Lugano. Sales to aggregators headquartered in Zurich may move functions such as compliance, risk management and information technology out of the canton while leaving the relationship managers in place. Runoffs transfer the assets to banks, which may keep them in Lugano or book them elsewhere. The cumulative effect over a decade depends on the proportion of each path. A scenario in which most successions are internal or local mergers produces a smaller number of larger firms, still based in Lugano. A scenario in which many owners sell to national platforms or close their firms produces a thinner local market with fewer decision-makers.

Notes

1. Schwab, finews.com, 19 May 2026 (above). ↩
2. USTAT, 12 Denaro e banche (above). The average size of 3.5 FTE is derived from 874 enterprises and 3,031 FTE. ↩
3. Schwab, finews.com, 19 May 2026 (above). ↩
4. Ordinance on Financial Institutions of 6 November 2019 (FinIO), SR 954.11, Art. 25; see Chapter E.III. ↩
5. See Chapter E.III on aggregators active in Switzerland and Ticino. ↩
6. "Un'importante fusione a Lugano", finews.ch/ticino, 27 June 2022, https://www.finews.ch/ticino/52076-zest-lfg-holding-lugano-zurigo-massimo-borghesi-enrico-guagni (about 700 clients, CHF 2.5 billion of assets and about 50 employees in Lugano and Zurich; statements of Massimo Borghesi, LFG Holding, on stricter requirements and of Enrico Guagni, Zest, on the rising minimum critical mass of assets). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.