Turbulence in the capital markets hasn't done much to hurt the super-rich. One fintech entrepreneur even made it into the top ten of a popular ranking.
The widespread stock market collapse wiped out vast sums of value this year, although many of Switzerland's super-rich managed to escape fairly unscathed. Assets of the 300 wealthiest people in the country declined by only 0.1 percent, according to the ranking list «The Richest» compiled annually by the business magazine «Bilanz».
It is only the fifth time since 1999, that the richest 300 richest people have less money than the previous year. While billions seemingly evaporated into thin air, commodity traders and real estate magnates were among the big winners.
Setback for Partners Group
In the financial sector, the founders of Partners Group saw their billions dwindle. Since the advent of tighter monetary policy from central banks, it has become more difficult for the private equity firm to benefit from companies in which it took a stake.
This is reflected in performance fees and in the share price, which has halved this year, leaving Marcel Erni, Alfred Gantner, and Urs Wietlispach sitting on book losses of around one billion francs «Bilanz» calculates. To be sure, private equity is focused on longer-term investments with investors that can afford to weather market downturns.
Pousaz and Safra Families Do Well
Guillaume Pousaz fared better, cracking the list of the ten richest Swiss with a 4 billion francs ($4.2 billion) asset increase to 16 billion francs. In January, the Geneva native was able to raise a billion dollars for his financial start-up Checkout.com, which he founded ten years ago, valuing the company at 40 billion francs.
That should help ease the pain now that the platform which handles all payment processing between the checkout and the credit card network for buyers and businesses around the globe, is now only worth half that.
With 23 billion, there is another representative of high finance in the top ten. The Brazilian-Swiss Safra banking family with Syrian roots bought into the Basel-based Bank Sarasin in 2011, subsequently delisting it. Following the death of Joseph Safra, eldest son Jacob Safra took over. Since then, the group has continued to expand its business with institutional clients, especially in Europe.
Liechtenstein...
Outside the top ten, the Princely Family of Liechtenstein tops the «Bilanz» list of the most wealthy bankers this year with 10 billion Swiss francs. The crown jewel of the most financially successful aristocratic house in Europe under the leadership of Prince Hans-Adam von und zu Liechtenstein is LGT, which has grown faster than any other Swiss private bank in recent years.
With a princely portfolio, LGT also manages the family's financial assets, including a large proportion of private equity, and one of the world's most important art collections of around 1,700 paintings, sculptures, and other works.
... ahead of India and Greece
Behind the Liechtensteiners, with 8 billion, is the Hinduja family of Indian origin. Part of the family, headed by Prakash Hinduja, lives and works in western Switzerland, where the group's European business and the Hinduja private bank, founded in 1978, are managed.
The Latsis family weighs in at 3.5 billion francs. Descendants of Greek shipowner John Spyridon Latsis are major shareholders of the Swiss private bank EFG International. Family interests at the bank are represented by John Latsis after Spiro Latsis withdrew from the board of directors last year.
Ebner Cashes In
Martin Ebner, worth a reported 3.5 billion francs, sold the majority of his BZ Bank to Buendner Kantonalbank, the 77-year-old financier having placed his life's work in new hands.
For decades, the bank was the starting point for risky deals with which he took on the establishment as a corporate raider. In the 1990s, he proselytized to the general public with his Visionen funds, ultimately unsuccessfully, for saving in equities.
Stable Private Bankers
As in the previous year, the families around Ariane de Rothschild (Bank Edmond de Rothschild), de Picciotto (Union Bancaire Privée), and Vontobel and de la Cour (Bank Vontobel) are in the 2 to 3 billion range.
Under a Billion
Those with assets of less than a billion include the Cornaro family, which controls Cornèr Bank, a universal bank. Others in this private-banking bracket are the Eric Syz family (Syz Group), descendants of the Zurich banking dynasty Baer (Julius Baer, MBaer), the Syz-Abegg family (Maerki Baumann) with board chairman and filmmaker Hans G. Syz, André Bodmer (Rahn + Bodmer), SVP National Councilor Thomas Matter with his stake in Helvetische Bank, and the Reichmuth family of the Lucerne private bank of the same name.
New Faces
In the category of richest managers, Christian Sinding appears in the «Bilanz» ranking for the first time. The Norwegian has been CEO of the extremely successful investment company EQT since 2019 and has lived with his family on Zurich's Gold Coast since 2013. Although the EQT share has fallen by half since the beginning of the year due to the poor environment for IPOs, Sinding's share is still valued at 700 million francs. Managers, Boris Collardi, Sergion Ermotti, Oswald Gruebel, and Walter Kielholz each have around 200 million in the bank.
