Switzerland’s Fisch Asset Management is to hire five additional specialists as part of an expansion plan to make its business more international.
The firm said it would hire the five additional “international specialists” as part of a growth plan that would first see major investment in research and portfolio management and an extensive outsourcing of in-house technologies.
Fisch, whose co-chief executives Philipp Good and Juerg Sturzenegger have run the firm since the start of 2017, said the expansion would be over the “coming years” and will include tapping into new international markets.
Currently, the firm has 10.8 billion Swiss francs (€9.3 billion) of assets under management and is primarily active in Switzerland and Germany where it is mainly recognised for expertise in convertible and corporate bonds, and in multi-asset/absolute returns strategies.
Fisch has made new hires already this year in risk management, legal and compliance, and operations and product management, meaning that its total headcount at the end of June was 88 people.
The IT infrastructure will be upgraded and the firm aims to outsource current in-house technologies “extensively in order to optimise the client service offering”.
Sturzenegger said: “Our investments in expertise and infrastructure will allow us to better meet the increasing needs of our clients, while providing a foundation to help us achieve our growth targets. Our new state-of-the-art IT outsourcing solution will allow us to focus on our core asset management activities.”
During the first half of the year, Fisch raised over 900 million Swiss francs, which the firm said demonstrated the attractiveness of its strategies for investors with long-term horizons.
However, that sum was largely offset by redemptions but the firm said it had nevertheless produced positive investment performance and slightly increased AUM despite challenging market conditions.
©2018 funds europe
