Swiss private bank SYZ is opening an office in Edinburgh for its institutional asset management arm, after having hired Derek Borthwick as business development director for Scotland, the North of England and Northern Ireland in April.
Borthwick will be representing SYZ Asset Management in Scotland together with an unnamed analyst and fund manager Claire Manson, who joined the Swiss private bank in September together with Michael Clements.
Both joined from Franklin Templeton, and London-based Clements has since overhauled SYZ’s flagship fund OYSTER.
The Luxembourg SICAV set up in 1996 currently manages more than €1bn in active European equity strategies.
For the equity specialist SYZ, Edinburgh is important, “ranking in fourth place in Europe in equity markets” and being the second largest financial centre in the UK, the private bank noted in a statement.
Chief executive Eric Syz said: “Edinburgh is a recognised centre for asset management and constitutes an essential step for any long-lasting development in the UK.”
A spokesman for the private bank confirmed to IPE the asset manager wanted to manage and market SYZ’s institutional strategies from Edinburgh, “both via segregated mandates as well as the OYSTER and other investment funds”.
In total, the group is currently managing CHF28.7bn (€22.6bn) with a staff of 438 people globally.
It has offices in Switzerland in Zurich, Lugano and Locarno, as well as abroad in Milan, Rome, Madrid, Bilbao, Barcelona, London, Luxembourg, Paris, Brussels, Nassau and Hong Kong.
SYZ, having been present in the UK market for 13 years, established in March 2014 a partnership with Raymond James Investment Services to include the OYSTER range of funds on its open architecture platform.
Earlier this spring, Alfredo Piacentini and Paolo Luban – the two people who founded the bank in 1996 – left the company to focus on “personal projects”.
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