Zurich as an asset management centre

The size of the industry

The most widely used measure of the industry is the Swiss Asset Management Study, which the Asset Management Association Switzerland (AMAS) publishes each year together with a consulting firm. The study counts assets managed in Switzerland, whatever the domicile of the fund or the client, and thus includes discretionary mandates for institutions and funds domiciled abroad whose portfolio management takes place in Swiss offices. According to the edition published in June 2026, assets managed in Switzerland reached about CHF 3.73 trillion at the end of 2025, an increase of 8.2 per cent over the previous year. The study places Switzerland as the third-largest asset management centre in Europe after the United Kingdom and France. It reports that roughly one third of the assets originate from foreign clients and that the ten largest managers held 44 per cent of the market at the end of 2025, compared with 37 per cent in 2021.¹

The same study points to a structural weakness that has accompanied the industry for years. Net new money has remained modest by international standards, which means that growth depends to a large extent on the performance of equity and bond markets. The edition of 2025 had reported assets of CHF 3.45 trillion at the end of 2024 and an average annual growth rate of 5.5 per cent. AMAS’s chief executive, Adrian Schatzmann, observed at the time that nearly all of the growth stemmed from market performance, with only limited contributions from net inflows. The earlier study also put the average volume managed per full-time position at about CHF 320 million and the cost-income ratio at 73 per cent.² These figures describe an industry that is large, profitable and concentrated. They also show why market access abroad and the domestic pension market dominate the policy agenda of the association.

The volume of funds domiciled in Switzerland is a distinct figure and considerably smaller. A practitioner overview by Lenz & Staehelin puts the total Swiss fund market at about CHF 1.67 trillion in the third quarter of 2025. The figure measures investment funds only and leaves aside the mandates that make up a large part of the asset management figure.³ For the reader who wishes to understand the Zurich industry, the difference between the two statistics matters. A Zurich manager may run a Luxembourg fund, a Swiss pension fund mandate and a segregated account for an Asian insurer from the same trading floor. Only the first of those will appear in fund market statistics, and then under the flag of Luxembourg.

The main houses in Zurich and around it

The largest asset manager in Switzerland is the asset management division of UBS. It combines the fund business that the Union Bank of Switzerland and the Swiss Bank Corporation built from the 1930s onwards with the asset management arm of Credit Suisse, which UBS absorbed after the emergency takeover of 2023 described in Part G. At the end of 2025 the division reported invested assets of about USD 2.1 trillion. Its net new money for the year was USD 30.4 billion, which UBS described as an annualised growth rate of 1.7 per cent.⁴ Not all of these assets are managed in Zurich, because the division has large teams in London, Chicago, Singapore and elsewhere. The Zurich head office nevertheless remains the seat of the fund management companies through which UBS administers its Swiss funds, and of a large part of its investment management for Swiss institutions.

The second-largest house describes itself as Swisscanto, the asset management arm of the Zürcher Kantonalbank. Swisscanto reported assets of about CHF 326 billion at the end of December 2025.⁵ Its history reflects the federal structure of Swiss banking. The cantonal banks launched a first joint real estate fund in 1959 and set up an investment foundation for pension capital in 1973. In 1993 they created Swisscanto Holding AG as a common platform for the development and distribution of their funds. The Zürcher Kantonalbank acquired the Swisscanto group in 2015 and thereby created what the firm then described as the third-largest fund provider in Switzerland.⁶ The acquisition moved the centre of gravity of cantonal bank asset management firmly to Zurich. It also created a publicly owned asset manager of considerable size, a feature that has no exact parallel in Geneva.

Among the listed private banking groups, Vontobel and Julius Bär are the two with their headquarters in Zurich. Vontobel, which has long given asset management a larger weight than most of its peers, reported assets under management of CHF 241 billion at the end of 2025 and net new money of CHF 4.2 billion. The group is led by the co-chief executives Christel Rendu de Lint and Georg Schubiger.⁷ Julius Bär is today essentially a pure wealth manager whose assets under management rose to a record CHF 521 billion in 2025, with net new money of CHF 14.4 billion.⁸ The private banking side of these houses belongs to chapter H.III. For the present chapter they matter as fund promoters, as buyers of third-party funds for their clients and, in the case of Julius Bär, as the former parent of GAM.

GAM illustrates the rise and decline of an independent Zurich asset manager within a single generation. Gilbert de Botton founded Global Asset Management in 1983 as a specialist in hedge funds and multi-manager products. After its acquisition by Julius Bär and the later separation from the bank, GAM Holding became a listed Zurich company.⁹ Its decline began in 2018 with the suspension of a prominent fund manager and the liquidation of the funds he ran. By the first quarter of 2023 assets under management had fallen to about CHF 75 billion, and the firm’s liquidity had shrunk to a level that forced a sale.¹⁰ The exchange offer from the British firm Liontrust, which the Swiss Takeover Board had examined, failed in August 2023 for lack of shareholder support. The board of GAM then turned to the investor group NewGAMe, which comprised Rock Investment SAS, Newgame SA and Bruellan SA.¹¹ The episode showed how quickly a listed asset manager can lose its clients once confidence erodes. It also showed that Swiss takeover law, which chapter H.I describes, applies to fund houses in the same way as to industrial companies.

The most successful Swiss asset management foundation of the last thirty years lies just outside the canton. Partners Group was founded in 1996 in Zug by Marcel Erni, Alfred Gantner and Urs Wietlisbach. It listed its shares on the SIX Swiss Exchange in 2006 and passed USD 100 billion of assets under management in 2020, the year in which it joined the Swiss Market Index.¹² The firm reported assets under management of about USD 185 billion at the end of 2025, an increase of 21 per cent. It employs some 2,000 professionals and invests in private equity, private credit, infrastructure, real estate and royalties.¹³ Its campus in Baar, a few kilometres from the town of Zug, is the most visible sign that the Zurich asset management cluster extends well beyond the city limits.

A comparison with Geneva, the subject of the companion volume, helps to place these figures. The Pictet Group, the largest Geneva house, reported assets under management or custody of CHF 757 billion at the end of 2025, with net new money of CHF 19 billion. Its business spans wealth management, asset management, alternative investments and asset services.¹⁴ The two cities have therefore developed different profiles. Geneva combines its partnership-owned private banks with sizeable asset management arms and a strong international private client base, while Zurich holds the largest institutional asset managers, the pension-oriented cantonal bank platform and, in its hinterland, the private markets specialists. Both profiles rely on the same body of federal law, to whose history the chapter now turns.

Notes

1. Asset Management Association Switzerland (AMAS), “Swiss Asset Management Study 2026”, study conducted with zeb consulting, on assets of about CHF 3.73 trillion at the end of 2025, growth of 8.2 per cent, the rank of third in Europe, the foreign share of about one third and the rising concentration among the ten largest managers, https://www.am-switzerland.ch/en/services/data-and-reports/swiss-asset-management-study/swiss-asset-management-study-2026. The ranking behind the United Kingdom and France is also reported in Allnews, “Le secteur suisse de l’asset management reste solide” (10 June 2026), https://www.allnews.ch/content/news/le-secteur-suisse-de-l%E2%80%99asset-management-reste-solide. ↩
2. finews.com, “Asset Managers Seek Recipe for Further Growth”, on the Swiss Asset Management Study 2025 published on 12 June 2025, assets of CHF 3.45 trillion in 2024, the compound growth rate of 5.5 per cent, the share of foreign clients of 31 per cent, the assets per full-time position and the cost-income ratio, and the remarks of Adrian Schatzmann, https://www.finews.com/news/english-news/67976-amas-survey-study-2026. ↩
3. François Rayroux, Olivier Stahler, Patrick Schärli, Anna Beck and Sarah Bechaalany (Lenz & Staehelin), “Investment Funds 2026 – Switzerland: Trends and Developments”, Chambers Global Practice Guides, on a Swiss fund volume of about CHF 1.666 trillion in the third quarter of 2025, the moderate initial uptake of the L-QIF and recent regulatory developments, https://practiceguides.chambers.com/practice-guides/investment-funds-2026/switzerland/trends-and-developments. ↩
4. UBS Group AG, media release on the fourth quarter and full year 2025, on invested assets of the Asset Management division of USD 2,098 billion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2025, net new money of USD 30.4 billion in 2025 and the medium-term targets for the division, https://ubs.info/wp-content/themes/ubsinfo4Q25/doc/mediarelease-en.pdf. ↩
5. Swisscanto, “Was uns als zweitgrösste Asset-Managerin der Schweiz ausmacht”, on assets of about CHF 326 billion at the end of December 2025, the claim to be the second-largest asset manager in Switzerland and the launch of its first sustainable fund in 1998, https://www.swisscanto.com/ch/de/institutionelle/wer-wir-sind/was-uns-ausmacht.html. ↩
6. Swisscanto, “Swisscanto Erfolgsgeschichte: Zukunft auf Erfahrung bauen”, on the first cantonal bank real estate fund of 1959, the investment foundation of 1973, Swisscanto Vorsorge AG of 1983, Swisscanto Holding AG of 1993, the Green Invest fund of 1998 and the acquisition by the Zürcher Kantonalbank in 2015, https://www.swisscanto.com/ch/de/ueber-uns/geschichte.html. ↩
7. Vontobel, “Vontobel achieves successful 2025” (6 February 2026), on assets under management of CHF 241 billion at 31 December 2025, net new money of CHF 4.2 billion, net profit of CHF 280 million and the co-chief executives Christel Rendu de Lint and Georg Schubiger, https://www.vontobel.com/en-ch/about-vontobel/media/communications/vontobel-achieves-successful-2025/. ↩
8. Julius Baer Group, “Presentation of the 2025 full-year results for the Julius Baer Group”, on assets under management of CHF 521 billion, net new money of CHF 14.4 billion and the chief executive Stefan Bollinger, https://www.juliusbaer.com/en/media/news-portal/presentation-of-the-2025-full-year-results-for-the-julius-baer-group/. ↩
9. Wikipedia, “GAM Holding”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAM_Holding. GAM was founded as Global Asset Management in 1983 by Gilbert de Botton. UBS acquired it in 1999, and Julius Bär bought GAM together with three other private banks from UBS in 2005. In the separation of 2009 Julius Bär’s private banking business was spun off, while GAM remained the independently listed entity on SIX Swiss Exchange. ↩
10. finews.com, “Crisis of Confidence Fells Another Swiss Flagship Company” (4 May 2023), on the founding of GAM by Gilbert de Botton in 1983, the crisis that began in 2018 with the suspension of a prominent fund manager, the fall in assets under management to about CHF 75 billion, the net loss of 2022 and the agreed sale to Liontrust, https://www.finews.com/news/english-news/57156-gam-sale-liontrust-confidence-liquiditz-credit-suisse. ↩
11. Artemis, “GAM – Liontrust deal fails to win support, Board turn to investor group NewGAMe” (24 August 2023), on the failure of the Liontrust offer, the talks with the NewGAMe group formed by Rock Investment SAS, Newgame SA and Bruellan SA, and the significance of the catastrophe bond strategy of Fermat Capital Management for GAM’s assets and revenues, https://www.artemis.bm/news/gam-liontrust-deal-fails-to-win-support-board-turn-to-investor-group-newgame/. ↩
12. Partners Group, “Our Heritage”, on the founding in 1996 in Zug by Marcel Erni, Alfred Gantner and Urs Wietlisbach, the listing on the SIX Swiss Exchange in 2006, the first evergreen private markets fund of 2001, the passing of USD 100 billion of assets and admission to the Swiss Market Index in 2020, https://www.partnersgroup.com/en/about-us/our-heritage. ↩
13. Partners Group, “Partners Group delivers double-digit growth in 2025, in demanding market environment” (14 January 2026), on assets under management of USD 184.9 billion at the end of 2025, growth of 21 per cent, new client commitments of about USD 30 billion and the guidance for 2026, https://www.partnersgroup.com/news-and-views/press-releases/corporate-news/detail?news_id=675a461a-0455-4d91-a598-3cd510d6d777. ↩
14. Pictet Group, “Pictet announces full-year results for 2025” (10 February 2026), on assets under management or custody of CHF 757 billion at the end of 2025, up from CHF 724 billion, and net new money of CHF 19 billion, https://www.pictet.com/ca/en/corporate-news/release-full-year-2025-figures. ↩

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 September 2025.