Von Euw joins Swissca in institutional drive

SWITZERLAND- Swissca Portfolio Management has appointed Hans-Joerg von Euw as head of business development and client relationship. Von Euw joins from Julius Baer where he was responsible for client support and institutional clients in Switzerland and Austria.

Roman von Ah, general manager and chief executive of Swissca Portfolio Management, was responsible for client relationship prior to von Euw joining.

Swissca PM manages CHF30bn for Swissca, the country’s third largest provider of investment funds, CHF9.3bn for the investment foundation Prevista Anlagestiftung and CFH3.7bn for other third party institutional clients.

Von Euw has been appointed to build up indirect business through the Prevista foundation, which comprise money from the cantonal banks and their clients, and to build up the profile and reputation of Swissca as a third party, institutional investment manager.

“We would like to support the Cantonal banks more actively. So far this role was not really actively pursued,” says von Euw. Another element is to change the image of the outfit and to promote itself as a third party manager.

“It is not really recognised in the marketplace that Swissca Portfolio Management also offers direct institutional mandates. Swissca PM is seen as the manager for the Swissca mutual funds.

“We have more than 4bn in direct mandates. It’s a good start but it’s too small. We should be doing much more because of the competence we have. With my background with Julius Baer I know a lot of the large pension funds in Switzerland. It’s clear that we have the ability on the portfolio side but we never had the resources to market this actively to the clients,” he says.

Markus Hirt is joining Swissca PM in September to run the operations, logistics and IT. He comes from Credit Suisse where he held a similar position. Hirt, von Euw and von Ah will make up the new management committee.