Business Valuation: Independent Asset Managers

The average Swiss independent asset manager is valued at 4.5 - 6.0× EBITDA on a statutory (tax-based) basis and 5.0 - 8.0× EBITDA in actual transactions. The spread between statutory and deal multiples represents an arbitrage opportunity for informed buyers. The current market trend is rising, with an arbitrage gap rated as medium. In this niche the multiple is applied to earnings that can leave with the adviser, so the price depends above all on how much revenue is recurring asset-based fees, how many advisers share each client relationship, how concentrated the book is by client and by custodian bank, and how many clients stay through the handover.

Key valuation drivers include: Recurring, asset-based revenue on CHF 525bn (zeb) to CHF 850bn (FIN21) of client assets, with sector gross profit back up to CHF 6.0bn in 2025; A licence a buyer inherits rather than builds: all 1,359 portfolio managers on the register passed FINMA licensing and are supervised by one of four supervisory organisations. Factors that can compress valuations include: Founder-held client books: 63% of owners are 51 or older and 25% over 60, while only 38% have a clearly arranged succession (FIN21 2026); Earnings concentrated at the top: the 50 largest EAMs earn CHF 3.3bn of the CHF 6.0bn sector gross profit, leaving CHF 2.7bn for every other firm (zeb 2026). Deal multiples typically range from 5.0 - 8.0× EBITDA, but actual prices vary significantly based on customer concentration, management quality, revenue predictability, and geographic reach within Switzerland's 26 cantons.

FINMA's register gives an exact answer. On 14 September 2026 its list of institutions supervised by a supervisory organisation held 1,507 institutions: 1,359 with a portfolio-manager licence — the legal form of an independent asset manager — 159 with a trustee licence, and 11 holding both. Zurich (391) and Geneva (367) account for 55.8% of the licensed portfolio managers, followed by Ticino (142), Zug (117), Vaud (77) and Schwyz (55). Around this core sit 89 FinIA group companies supervised directly by FINMA, 28 of them carrying the Aquila name, and — on zeb's January 2026 count — 328 managers of collective assets. The number has risen since licensing settled, from 1,309 on 31 May 2025. The ~2,500 cited in the February 2026 edition of this report described the market before licensing became mandatory in 2020; Patrick Stauber of Marcuard Heritage notes that estimates for 2005-2015 ran at 2,000 to 2,500, many of them one-person firms. In the business statistics the activity sits in NOGA 663002, fund management, which BFS STATENT 2024 puts at 3,158 enterprises and 21,947 employees, with employment up 20.4% since 2019 while the number of enterprises rose 3.2%. Most firms are small: in FIN21 and WealthSummit's 2026 survey, 83% run with ten full-time equivalents or fewer.

Succession in Swiss independent asset management is less the sale of a company than the transfer of client relationships, and most owners have not yet organised it. FIN21 and WealthSummit's 2026 survey of 170 licensed managers found 63% of owners aged 51 or older and 25% over 60, while only 38% have a clearly arranged succession, 32% a partial one and 26% none. ValIndex's June 2026 study reaches the same conclusion from the register: 882 of 1,579 operating firms, 56%, are run by three people or fewer, and 669 boutiques of two or three people manage an estimated CHF 166bn. The February 2026 edition of this report put the share of principals aged 55 or older at over 60%; that figure could not be traced to a source and is replaced by the survey data. What decides the price is whether clients stay. Patrick Stauber, CEO of Marcuard Heritage, wrote in June 2026 that at smaller firms buyer and seller rarely meet on value, because the buyer wants the client book while the seller prices the legal entity, and that clients follow the adviser rather than the legal form. Transactions that close are therefore built around retention and handover time. The register shows the pattern: SSI Wealth Management AG absorbed Huber & Partner Vermögensverwaltung AG under a merger contract of 19 February 2026. The other route is a platform — 28 of the 89 FinIA group companies supervised directly by FINMA carry the Aquila name — and 71% of surveyed managers name consolidation, including joining a platform, as their most urgent task. Scale sets the floor: 85% doubt that a firm managing less than CHF 50m can survive. Owners should document which adviser holds which relationship, revenue by custodian bank, the licence and supervisory organisation, and plan two to three years of overlap. Deal multiples for the sector typically run 5.0 - 8.0× EBITDA.

Four trends define the sector in 2026: (1) The licence count stopped falling — Since licensing settled, the number of licensed portfolio managers has risen rather than fallen: 1,309 on 31 May 2025 (the FIN21 base) and 1,359 on FINMA's register of 14 September 2026, alongside 159 trustee licences. zeb notes the same recovery after the temporary dent licensing caused. (2) Assets recovered, earnings did not — zeb puts assets managed by Swiss EAMs at CHF 525bn at the end of 2025, above the CHF 500bn of 2021, while gross profit of CHF 6.0bn remains below the CHF 6.3bn of 2021. (3) Platforms are replacing the classic sale — Aquila AG holds a FINMA banking licence and 28 of the 89 FinIA group companies supervised directly by FINMA carry the Aquila name, from Aquila Luzern Vermögensverwaltung AG to Aquila GVM Consulting SA in Lugano. (4) Supervision consolidated too — FINcontrol Suisse AG absorbed OSFIN, Organisation de surveillance financière, of Neuchâtel and renamed itself OSFINcontrol AG, entered in the register and published in the SHAB on 29 December 2025.

The principal acquisition risks are: (1) Sub-scale firms may not survive: 85% of IAMs doubt that a firm managing under CHF 50m has a future (FIN21 2026); (2) Clients follow the adviser, not the legal entity: buyer and seller rarely agree on value at small firms, and retention after a sale is often assumed rather than tested (Stauber, June 2026); (3) Licence status can change: Finaport Asset Management AG left the supervised perimeter in 2025 and now trades as Trigon Investment Advisors AG — check the register at signing and at closing. Buyers should conduct thorough due diligence on customer concentration, regulatory compliance, and key-person dependencies. Deal multiples of 5.0 - 8.0× EBITDA may be discounted for firms with elevated risk profiles.

An indicative cost split for a Swiss independent asset manager is: Personnel (portfolio managers, relationship managers, admin): 58%, Regulatory & compliance (supervisory organisation, audit, AML): 7%, Technology & IT (portfolio management system, data, cloud): 6%, Office & occupancy: 5%, Platform, custody-related & outsourcing fees: 4%, Marketing & client acquisition: 2%, Profit margin (EBITDA): 18%. Indicative split for an owner-run Swiss independent asset manager near the median size, anchored to the one published cost model for the sector. PwC's Portfolio Manager Industry 360° view (December 2023) puts personnel at 60-80% of total expenses and other operating costs at 15-25%, adds a recurring CHF 34-54k a year for supervision after licensing, and models a manager with CHF 61m of assets at an 18% EBITDA margin after licensing — against 0% at CHF 50m and 50% at CHF 100m. The February 2026 edition attributed a different split to Simon-Kucher, PwC and WealthBriefing research without matching their figures; it has been rebalanced to PwC's ranges. The 2026 surveys point the same way: FIN21/WealthSummit respondents name personnel (77%), compliance (54%) and IT/cloud (42%) as the costs that move the net margin, and 70% outsource accounting, 66% IT and 61% compliance. At sector level zeb puts 2025 gross profit at CHF 6.0bn, CHF 3.3bn of it earned by the 50 largest firms — scale, not fee level, is what separates margins. For a buyer, the useful exercise is to separate the costs that integrate away — supervisory audit, compliance, IT and accounting — from the one that does not, which is the adviser who holds the client.

Switzerland's independent asset managers are concentrated in five clusters: (1) Zurich (ZH) — The largest pool of licensed portfolio managers: 391 on FINMA's register of 14 September 2026, 28.8% of the national total, 322 of them in the city. (2) Geneva (GE) — Almost level with Zurich on count — 367 licensed portfolio managers, 27.0%, of which 327 in the city — and ahead of it on trustees, with 62 of the 159 trustee licences. (3) Ticino (TI) — The third hub and the most concentrated: 142 licensed portfolio managers, of which 105 in Lugano and 14 in Chiasso, oriented to Italian and southern European clients. (4) Zug and Schwyz (ZG/SZ) — Together 172 licensed portfolio managers — Zug 117, of which 75 in the town and 20 in Baar, and Schwyz 55, concentrated on the lake shore at Wollerau, Pfäffikon, Freienbach, Schindellegi and Bäch. (5) Vaud (VD) — 77 licensed portfolio managers, led by Lausanne (27) and Nyon (15), with the rest spread along the lake between Coppet and Montreux. The register makes the split exact: Zurich and Geneva hold 55.8% of the 1,359 licensed portfolio managers, and the six largest cantons 84.5%.