Schoch's second major mistake was misjudging his own and Leonteq's capabilities. The entrepreneuer always aimed high, first at Leonteq and later at Flynt, a digital wealth manager.
finews.com attended the opening of Leonteq's offices in Singapore's Asia Square in Marina Bay last May (pictured above), an event whose pomp was meant to signal a conquering of the Asian market. Leonteq also grabbed prime real estate in Zurich's Europaallee and London's Shard.
It quickly emerged that Leonteq's business promise didn't match up to its real estate ambitions. The firm walked back its growth targets and also attempted to free itself of some of the costly commitments for office space.
Angering Partners
Over at Flynt, a similar pattern emerged: Schoch hired dozens of high-paid programmers to design an «innovative» platform for a client base and business model that were still dreams and visions.
At the same time, Schoch insisted on clinching a costly and cumbersome banking license from regulator Finma – delaying the firm's start and in turn angering Flynt's development and management team.
Flynt suffered top-level churn from the start, before finally celebrating its official opening as a bank in August with ambitious goals not short on self-confidence.
Burning Money
That was smoke and mirrors: Flynt burned through so much money that Schoch – who could no longer rely on a dividend from Leonteq after selling down his stake – sold the firm's cornerstone. He also burned bridges with the board and CEO Stijn Vander Straeten.
Schoch's third mistake is probably his more grievous: as CEO of publicly-traded Leonteq, he repeatedly issued growth targets only to walk them back a short time later. The most egregious example of this was last fall's investor day, where the firm disclosed new goals and measures to shore up investor trust after several setbacks that had hammered its share price.
DBS Fell Through
Just weeks later, Leonteq shocked investors with a profit warning after sliding into losses in the second half. Schoch had fed investor expectations with a slew of new partnerships for Leonteq, of which only a few actually materalialized.
For example, investors were dismayed to learn last February that DBS, pegged as Leonteq's biggest partner in Asia, didn't want to work with the Swiss firm. The Singapore bank's reluctance to committ fed into the sell-off of Leonteq's shares, which had set in mid-2015.
Schoch could no longer keep investors sweet with new partnerships and other goodies linked to Leonteq's supposedly ultra-modern platform – his promises had worn thin.
