Media Visibility: Q2 2026 · Q3 2026 · the standing ranking
This is the first edition of a quarterly series on Swiss independent wealth managers. Q2 2026 is measured the same way every quarter is: by who was visible in the trade press between 1 April and 30 June. Counting is a method, not an opinion. Moreover, every claim links to its source.
The Quarter in One Line
Q2 2026 was the quarter the industry finally counted itself and could not agree on the answer. An American consolidator took one of Geneva’s best-known names, the trade association published complete figures for the first time in over five years, a consolidator’s own management walked out to found a competitor, and the regulator stopped warning and started banning.
The Deals That Shaped the Quarter
Bedrock — On 16 April the Miami-based firm Corient agreed to acquire the Geneva independent asset manager, founded in 2004 by Ariel Arazi, Maurice Ephrati and David Joory, who become Corient partners. Bedrock manages around CHF 8.4 billion and runs offices in London, Monaco and Lisbon alongside Geneva. Together with Stonehage Fleming and Stanhope Capital, the three deals add roughly USD 220 billion, taking Corient to about USD 468 billion and 12,000 staff, with Swiss headcount near 200. finews.ch · Citywire Switzerland
A month later the buyers explained themselves. In a joint interview published by SPHERE on 18 May, Corient CEO Kurt MacAlpine and Stanhope founder Daniel Pinto confirmed the Bedrock purchase as closed and said more Swiss opportunities were under evaluation; Pinto called it an important stage and certainly not the last. As at end-March Corient held USD 222 billion in client assets and had integrated 40 firms as a partnership of nearly 250 partner-shareholders. Both expect Switzerland to produce a small number of very large non-bank platforms. SPHERE
Cinerius and Honestas — On 28 May the Zug consolidator took a majority stake in Hamburg’s Honestas group, its first move into northern Germany, pushing it past EUR 18 billion under management. Founders Carolin Tsalkas and Stefan Kirchner stay as managing partners and take stakes in Cinerius, which then counted twelve partner firms, more than 200 staff and fifteen locations across the DACH region and Luxembourg. finews.ch · Citywire Switzerland
SSI Group — Also on 16 April, the Cinerius subsidiary announced the broadest restructuring of the quarter. Subject to FINMA approval it opens up to institutional clients with a DACH focus, and Zurich’s Huber & Partner, which joined in early 2025, is folded entirely into SSI Wealth Management in Bäch. Founder Werner Huber joined the executive board on 1 April as co-CEO alongside Oliver Amstad; CEO Manuel Imhof left at the end of May. The group managed around CHF 2.9 billion at the end of 2025. finews.ch · Citywire Switzerland
SwissComply — On 23 April the compliance group acquired Liechtenstein’s CLL Compliance Labs, whose founder Siegfried Herzog joins its board. It was the third acquisition in two years after Primecoach and Lexpert Partners, with more said to be in preparation. The declared goal is to become the leading independent compliance, risk and legal platform in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, explicitly for independent asset managers and family offices; board member Kaspar Wohnlich says that market is at the start of its own consolidation phase. finews.ch · Citywire Switzerland
Three further supplier deals landed in the same eight weeks. On 2 June SEALSQ took majority control of the Geneva compliance fintech Wecan Group. On 8 June Temenos agreed to buy the Zurich orchestration provider Additiv outright, closing expected in the third quarter. And on 3 June Reuss Private Access completed a management buyout under Pino Thormann and Viktor Fischer, renaming itself Renard Solutions. investrends.ch · finews.ch · finews.ch
Read together, these are the quarter’s real pattern. The independents themselves barely consolidated. Their suppliers did.
Hires, Exits and Successions
Align Private Wealth — The people story of the quarter is the other half of the SSI story. Six staff left the Cinerius-owned group to found a new independent asset manager in Zurich, revealed by Citywire on 2 June. The founding CEO is Manuel Imhof, who had been at SSI since 2018 and ran SSI Wealth Management until the end of May. With him went senior relationship managers Fredrik Larsson and Erik Nordgren, both at the firm since 2017, plus Robert Kalisch, chief investment officer Michael Sullivan and portfolio manager Yves Brosi. The firm was incorporated in February. Read alongside the restructuring above, this is the cost of consolidation stated plainly: buy the firm, and the people can still leave and rebuild it next door. Citywire Switzerland
The alternatives chair changed hands twice in two days. On 28 May Marco Bizzozero left iCapital after five and a half years building its international business, joining LGT Capital Partners as managing partner from September. The day after, iCapital named Brooks Entwistle as his successor, moving him from Singapore to Zurich; the platform held nearly USD 1.2 trillion at end-March and works with more than 3,400 wealth management firms. finews.ch · finews.ch
Zwei Wealth hired twice and promised eighteen more. Rolf Kaufmann, previously managing director at 1875 Finance, joined as partner and wealth officer on 22 April; Jochen Gass followed from Julius Bär on 13 May. The platform repeated through the quarter that it is looking for twenty further wealth officers in 2026 — a hiring plan rather than a hire, and worth revisiting next quarter to see whether it lands. finews.ch · finews.ch
Valère Consulting — On 29 April the Geneva manager, founded in 2010 by Tristan Bregy and Pierre-André Gailland with over CHF 1 billion under management, reported a FINMA collective-assets licence granted in March, five years after coming under the supervisory organisation AOOS. Dominik Järmann returned as portfolio manager, Nik Bamert joined the board as chairman and Markus Gitz as member, and the firm absorbed the multi-asset strategy and team of Liechtenstein’s Valeria Capital. finews.ch
Elsewhere: Mosaik Capital took Beat Gartmann from UBS as senior investment strategist on 21 May; the Zurich boutique DCP Client Partner added Ulrich Behm and Jürg Rimle to its board on 4 June; and on 30 June Citywire reported founders stepping down in an executive reshuffle at a Geneva independent. finews.ch · finews.ch · Citywire Switzerland
Nobody Agrees How Big This Industry Is
Three different counts of Swiss independent wealth managers were published inside eleven weeks, and no two of them match: about 1,600 FINMA-authorised firms per Lombard Odier on 20 April, 1,431 licensed in the VSV/ASG Yearbook at 30 April, and about 1,400 in my own commentary of 19 June. The full comparison, with what each source actually counts, is kept current on the standing ranking page.
The asset figures diverge further. The association puts the market at roughly CHF 500 billion; FINMA’s annual report gives CHF 353 billion as at end-2024, but counts only institutions it supervises directly; and Indosuez, which serves some 380 independent managers, sizes Swiss EAM-managed assets at around EUR 600 billion, or 15 to 20 percent of everything deposited at Swiss private banks. Anyone quoting a market size should say which of the three they mean. moneycab · SPHERE
The Lombard Odier piece of 20 April is also the quarter’s most useful guide to how these deals actually work. It distinguishes share deals, asset deals and referral transactions, warns that valuations based on assets under management rarely survive scrutiny of profitability and asset quality, and treats earn-outs, claw-backs, staged payments and escrow as the alignment tools that decide whether client relationships actually transfer.
What the Research Found
The fifth VSV-ASG Investment Pulse, published on 12 May by Vanguard, the association and the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences, drew 100 responses, down from 163 a year earlier. Swiss equities take 30 percent of strategic allocations against Switzerland’s roughly 2 percent share of global market capitalisation; US equities 29 percent against a 60 percent benchmark weight; and almost half of respondents say ESG plays no role at all, noticeably more than in previous years. finews.ch
On 10 June the second study of Swiss single family offices, commissioned by the SFOA and UBS and carried out by the University of St. Gallen, reported 82 participating offices managing around CHF 785 billion, some 30 percent more than two years earlier, with 54 percent based in Zurich and Zug. Its most quoted finding concerned the inheritance-tax initiative voted on in November 2025: 53 percent had considered leaving Switzerland, with 5 percent already gone and 15 percent holding concrete plans. finews.ch
The Supervisor and the Courts
Wendelspiess Partners — On 3 June FINMA concluded enforcement proceedings against the Zurich wealth manager, imposed long-term industry bans on two individuals and withdrew the firm’s licence; the company is in liquidation and the ruling can still be appealed. Client money went largely into an in-house fund the firm had run since 2021, undiversified and illiquid, which held over CHF 83 million at the end of 2024 and faces the prospect of total loss. The firm and several of its officers held interests in that fund themselves. More than 400 clients were affected, most assessed as having moderate to limited financial knowledge, and suitability checks were not performed at all. FINMA · finews.ch
Swiss Fund Management and BZ Berater Zentrum — FINMA closed a second case on 1 May and made it public on 29 June. It withdrew the fund licence of Swiss Fund Management AG, in liquidation, appointed Grant Thornton as liquidator, and — the part that matters most for this industry — rejected BZ Berater Zentrum’s application for a licence as an independent wealth manager. BZ held around 2,000 discretionary mandates at the time. Funds run by the two firms held large positions in illiquid bonds financing overseas property developments, with proceeds also flowing into stakes and loans benefiting the companies themselves. Marco Piero Garzetti, the individual behind both, was barred from managerial roles for five years. FINMA · finews.ch
Two more regulatory items bracket the quarter. On 1 April Citywire reported a Lugano independent asset manager entering liquidation; on 29 June it reported FINMA confiscating CHF 3 million over serious breaches. And on 22 June it emerged that FINMA had opened a preliminary investigation into the Biel investment company Haute Capital Partners on suspicion of market manipulation; its CEO describes it as a routine information request. Citywire Switzerland · Citywire Switzerland · finews.ch
Two concluded enforcement cases, one confiscation, one liquidation and one investigation in a single quarter, and in one of them a licence application simply refused. For a branch that spent years treating FINMA authorisation as a paperwork exercise, Q2 2026 was the quarter supervision acquired teeth.
The Industry’s Voice
The quarter’s most consequential publication was not a deal but a yearbook. On 19 May the Swiss Association of Wealth Managers released complete industry figures for the first time in more than five years, in its fortieth year. At 30 April 2026, 1,431 Swiss managers held a FINMA licence: 1,341 under one of the four supervisory organisations and 90 supervised directly as group companies. The detail that deserved more attention than it got: there have been only about twenty genuine mergers since 2022, far fewer than the consolidation narrative implies, while 61 new applications were filed in 2025, roughly offsetting retirements. The median firm has 3.3 employees, 68 clients and CHF 140 million under management, up from CHF 103 million five years earlier; advisory mandates without management power add CHF 80 billion. finews.ch
Vivien Jain, who succeeded Patrick Dorner as chief executive in the first quarter, gave her first substantial interview on 22 June. She puts the association’s coverage above 60 percent of the market, notes that the sector’s roughly CHF 500 billion would make it Switzerland’s fourth-largest wealth manager after UBS, Pictet and Julius Bär, and argues that the fall from a reported 2,500 firms to about 1,400 mostly reflects entries that were never active managers. She is asking for a cut in FINMA supervisory fees and puts a realistic succession at five to seven years. finews.ch
The Platforms Behind the Firms
For a ten-person firm, a supplier deciding whose side it is on matters more than most M&A headlines, because an outsourced platform is what lets a small firm operate like a large one. Three suppliers made that decision in Q2. On 27 April Allocare launched a Swiss-hosted cloud platform for independent managers and family offices, connecting to more than 60 custodian banks. On 26 May the Zurich wealthtech Everon dropped its direct-to-consumer business to serve financial intermediaries only. And on 15 June the Munich provider QPLIX reported passing thirty Swiss clients after adding some eighteen external asset managers in two years, growing its Swiss team from one person to ten. finews.ch · finews.ch · finews.ch
Two more suppliers reported scale. Infront, which operates in Switzerland through Assetmax, serves about 120 Swiss wealth managers with roughly 50 staff and plans to expand in Zurich and Lugano. And the Zurich securitisation fintech GenTwo passed USD 7 billion in assets under service on 5 May, about ten months after crossing six billion, with more than 300 clients in 26 countries. finews.ch · finews.ch
Where the Industry Met
The sector’s own gathering took place on 7 and 8 May at the Mandarin Oriental Palace in Lucerne: the seventh Citywire Swiss Wealth Retreat, built exclusively around independent wealth managers, with the award ceremony for the Top 50 Independent Asset Managers 2026. On 4 June some 250 professionals went to Zwei Wealth’s Wealth Office Conference at the Kunsthaus Zürich, where 22 institutions each pitched an investment solution in seven minutes; Dr. Pirmin Hotz Vermögensverwaltungen, Emcore Asset Management and Swiss Positive Gold took the three category prizes, and Swisspeers the innovation award. Citywire · finews.ch
Two platform operators used SPHERE in April to set out competing answers to the consolidation question. Aquila, which supports more than 85 partner firms, spun off Aquila Investment Partner in 2024 to retain clients whose manager exits; CEO Jürg Furrer positions the group explicitly as a facilitator rather than an acquirer and expects the number of Swiss EAMs to decline slightly by 2030 while average size grows. SPHERE · SPHERE
Quote of the Quarter
Vivien Jain, six months into running the industry association in its fortieth year, titled her first big interview with three words: «Die Power ist da» — the power is there. Said of a sector that is shrinking in headcount, growing in assets and still arguing about how large it actually is, it reads as either confidence or defiance, and the next four quarters will tell which. finews.ch
Just After the Bell
Two stories broke within days of the quarter closing. On 30 June the Geneva manager Bruellan announced its succession: founders Antoine Spillmann and Jean-Paul Tissières step back, Philippe Moser chairs management and Malek Dahmani arrives as CIO from Lombard Odier, at a firm of more than 35 staff and just under CHF 2 billion. Three days later Ticino’s Credinvest Bank took a 19.5 percent stake in the Lugano independent wealth manager Carthesio. Both open the Q3 edition. finews.ch · finews.ch
How We Counted
We reviewed trade-press coverage of Swiss independent wealth managers published between 1 April and 30 June 2026 in finews.ch and finews.com, SPHERE, Citywire Switzerland, moneycab, investrends.ch, the NZZ, Finanz und Wirtschaft and the Handelszeitung, and cross-checked every regulatory item against FINMA’s own media releases. We count earned coverage only: bylined guest essays, advertorials and sponsored event notices do not qualify, and listing or award mentions are recorded separately from articles about a firm. German and English versions of the same story count once.
Two limits are worth stating. Citywire Switzerland anonymises firm names in its headlines, so items reachable only by headline are counted as coverage but cannot always be attributed to a named firm. And one firm appearing in this quarter’s coverage is the author’s employer; it is counted on exactly the same basis as every other firm, and the author’s own bylined commentary of 19 June is excluded under the guest-essay rule that applies to everyone.
A standing media presence ranking of Swiss independent wealth managers accompanies this series.
Source: https://vapa.ch/swiss-independent-wealth-managers-q2-2026/ · vapa.ch
