DWS announced on 5 October 2026 that it will acquire 100% of Peakside Capital Advisors, a Zug-based manager of value-add and opportunistic real estate with more than EUR 1.7 billion under management and about 45 employees, from a shareholder group around founders Stefan Aumann and Boris Schran. Closing is planned for the end of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.
Cinerius Financial Partners of Zug, which groups 13 independent wealth managers with more than 200 employees and over EUR 20 billion under management, announced on 5 October 2026 a majority stake in Franz Martz & Söhne Private Treuhand of Saarbrücken. The Martz owners take a stake in Cinerius in return.
UBS announced on 6 October 2026 that it will transfer the former Credit Suisse fund administration businesses in Switzerland and Luxembourg to Northern Trust and exit fund administration, with closing expected in the second quarter of 2027 and migration over two years.
4Press-Reported Deals-20% WoW
605Distress Events+17% WoW
5Startup FundingCHF 53.9M converted
15Succession Signals+7% WoW
1094New Registrations+2% WoW
2622Board Changes+4% WoW
A large manager buys a Zug boutique whole. DWS is buying Peakside Capital Advisors, which manages more than EUR 1.7 billion of German and Central European real estate with about 45 people. The founders, Stefan Aumann and Boris Schran, stay. A buyer that needs the team pays for keeping it.
A Zug platform pays partly in its own shares. Cinerius groups 13 independent wealth managers with more than EUR 20 billion. Its new partner, Franz Martz & Söhne of Saarbrücken, sells a majority and takes Cinerius shares in return. For an owner, that swaps a single exit for a stake in the consolidator.
UBS keeps shedding Credit Suisse activities. The former Credit Suisse fund administration in Switzerland and Luxembourg goes to Northern Trust, and UBS leaves fund administration. Closing is expected in the second quarter of 2027, with two years of migration.
Distress: an instrument maker in the Zurich Oberland. ECO PHYSICS of Dürnten, which has made analysers for nitrogen oxides since 1989, was declared bankrupt on 2 October. Its designs and the instruments in service that need calibration are the assets. In Neuchâtel, MATIS, a materials-analysis company, went bankrupt on 30 September.
Where the next wealth-manager sellers are
Our study of the sector counted 1,349 wealth managers licensed by FINMA, and 882 of them, 56%, run by three people or fewer. Those boutiques are what platforms like Cinerius buy, and most will need a buyer or a successor within ten years.
The screen: take FINMA's public list of licensed portfolio managers, match each firm to the commercial register, and keep those with three or fewer board members and signatories. Then drop the firms where a relative with the founder's surname joined the board in the last few years; our family-handover study found that firms passed within the family are sold 40% less often in the following seven years. What remains is the pool of owners who will sell to someone outside the family.
Pre-Deal Signals — moves that precede transactions
Oct 5
Robobee AGSZ
Share capital doubled to CHF 500,000 on 29 September by converting CHF 290,000 of loans into a new class of voting shares (published 5 October)
neutral
Oct 6
M.A. Med Alliance SASH· Medical devices
Deloitte entered as auditor (published 6 October)
bullish
Oct 6
Aerospace Ventures AGZG
Auditor changed from SRG Schweizerische Revisionsgesellschaft to Grant Thornton (published 6 October)
neutral
Oct 5
Ruffiner Reisen AGVS· Coach travel
Share capital raised fourfold, from CHF 100,000 to CHF 400,000 (published 5 October)
neutral
Procurement Prints — public contract awards
Oct 6
Tozzo AG BSBS
IWB, the Basel utility: small civil-engineering jobs and on-call service, CHF 19.8 million.
4 public awards in2026 · 10 tracked total · CHF 28M lifetime
CHF 19.8M
Oct 5
Tradeware AGZH
Swissgrid, the national grid operator: Oracle database licences, CHF 8.0 million.
award 2 on our record · 2 tracked total · CHF 9M lifetime
CHF 8.0M
Oct 5
Philips AGZH
University Hospital Zurich: ultrasound diagnostic systems, one of three awards in the same tender, CHF 7.6 million.
13 public awards in2026 · 32 tracked total · CHF 96M lifetime
CHF 7.6M
Oct 6
CANCOM Switzerland AGZH
ETH Zurich IT services: wireless network components, CHF 7.6 million.
4 public awards in2026 · 6 tracked total · CHF 13M lifetime
CHF 7.6M
Oct 7
esolva agTG
Municipality of Bregaglia: smart-meter roll-out from 2027 to 2029, with options to 2031, CHF 1.9 million.
2 public awards in2026 · 8 tracked total · CHF 11M lifetime
CHF 1.9M
The Tape — 4 transactions
Press reported in the mediaReg commercial-register filing, value = net assets
Oct 5
PRESS
Cinerius Financial Partners← Franz Martz & Söhne Private Treuhand
Cinerius of Zug groups 13 independent wealth managers in the German-speaking countries and Luxembourg, with more than 200 staff and over EUR 20 billion under management. It takes a majority of Franz Martz & Söhne of Saarbrücken, which grew out of the Martz family office and manages more than EUR 500 million. The sellers take shares in Cinerius instead of cash only, and completion is expected in the first half of 2027.
Northern Trust← UBS fund administration (ex-Credit Suisse, CH and LU)ZH
UBS transfers the former Credit Suisse fund administration businesses in Switzerland and Luxembourg to Northern Trust and leaves fund administration altogether; its Swiss and Luxembourg management companies extend their administration agreement with Northern Trust. Closing is expected in the second quarter of 2027, with migration over two years. Another Credit Suisse activity that UBS chooses not to run itself.
Antalis← Papyrus (Germany, Switzerland and Central Europe)
OptiGroup of Sweden sells the Papyrus paper-distribution businesses in Germany, Switzerland, Poland and seven other Central and Eastern European countries to Antalis, with combined 2025 sales of about EUR 215 million and about 255 employees, and keeps Papyrus in the Nordics and Benelux. Closing needs competition approval. In Switzerland, the number of paper merchants falls by one.
Geneva School of Digital Arts (GSDA) SA← SAE Institute Switzerland AG
SAE Institute Switzerland AG of Zurich is the Swiss company of the SAE schools for audio engineering, film and games. Published 7 October: it transferred assets of CHF 647,491, with no liabilities, to Geneva School of Digital Arts (GSDA) SA, a Geneva school for digital media and games, for CHF 640,000. The same notice records the departure of SAE Switzerland's vice-chair. The only register filing this week we could confirm as a purchase between different owners.
Namespace runs fast computing environments in which developers build and test software on Mac, Windows and Linux. A US company with a Swiss subsidiary and part of its team in Switzerland, it will spend the round on product and data centres, including more Mac hardware.
UniSieve of Zurich makes membranes that separate industrial gases and capture carbon without the heat that thermal processes need. The Series A takes total funding to USD 25 million and pays for scaling in existing markets and new applications.
SensorX, founded in 2023, builds instruments that measure methane emissions for energy companies and infrastructure operators. The seed money pays for production, engineering and customer deployments.
Swiss Technology Fund (loan guarantee), private investors, founding team
ECO PHYSICS AG in Liquidation ZH · Measuring instruments
bankruptcy
The Hinwil district bankruptcy court opened bankruptcy on 2 October 2026, published 8 October. The Dürnten company has made chemiluminescence analysers for nitric oxide and nitrogen oxides since 1989, used for emissions testing and air-quality monitoring. Its instrument designs, the installed base that needs calibration and service, and the brand are what a maker of gas analysers would look at.
MATIS SA en liquidation NE · Materials analysis
bankruptcy
Declared bankrupt by the regional court of Littoral and Val-de-Travers on 30 September 2026, published 7 October. The Neuchâtel company's registered purpose is developing and selling high-technology products and advising on the characterisation of materials such as paint layers, pigments, inks and documents. Its instruments and methods are of interest to conservation, authentication and forensic laboratories.
ICF Isolations Sàrl, en liquidation GE · Insulation contractor · est. 2003
bankruptcy
Declared bankrupt by the Geneva court of first instance on 24 September 2026, published 7 October. The Meyrin insulation contractor, registered since 2003, leaves open building contracts and a client list that a Geneva building-envelope firm could take over before the work is re-tendered.
The Signals
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Based on 6,737 SOGC/SHAB publications processed this week. M&A data sourced from Swiss commercial registry filings (1 SOGC), press-reported transactions via web intelligence (4 EXA), and startup funding from Startupticker, Tech.eu, and company disclosures (5 rounds). Company distress scoring based on proprietary multi-signal model across 113,000 Swiss companies. Register deal counts exclude merger and asset-transfer filings whose notice states that one owner held every share of both companies, and demergers. This week's only register asset transfer, FO-Security AG to FO Identity AG, both of Egg, is a transfer between sister companies and is not on the tape. Press deals rejected on review: UBS and Credit Suisse (a 2024 merger resurfacing through an adviser's credentials page), Visorway (funding round not confirmed by any source we could read), and Trasteel Holding's purchase of the remaining 40% of BBC Alloys of Italy (a foreign target).
ValIndex reads every SHAB filing the day it publishes, checks each merger notice for common ownership, and tracks succession, distress and ownership signals across Swiss companies. About ValIndex →