Swiss asset manager LFA, which focuses on U.S. clients, has received a license from Swiss financial regulator Finma, making it one of the first SEC-registered asset managers in Switzerland to do so.
Lugano Financial Advisors (LFA), part of LFG Holding, was founded in 2009 and was licensed by US. regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2010.
LFA has nearly $1 billion in assets under management. The holding company itself manages around $2 billion of client assets.
«Obtaining approval was compulsory, and we felt was not only necessary but also appropriate and helpful right from the start. However, we have not changed the way we work because it already met Finma’s requirements,» LFA CEO Francesco Bernasconi (pictured below) said.
Major Impact
This means both LFG Holding companies, LFG Investment Consulting and LFA, have Finma licenses.
«The new laws on the independent asset management industry are having and will have a major organizational, operational and, above all, financial impact on these market participants. It is true that we can find solutions to enable us to comply with the new legal framework, including via forms of outsourcing and external advice, but I’m not sure whether this is the best way forward,» Bernasconi added.
Radical Change
«We know from direct experience, but also from reliable sources that there are various contacts between medium-sized and smaller companies on creating alliances and synergies as well as on cooperation. The aim of all this is to help them face an increasingly challenging future. As far as we know, these contacts have not yet been all that successful for a variety of reasons,» he said.
In this context, Bernasconi said he didn’t think all asset managers were yet truly aware of the rapid and radical change happening around them. He said he hoped that further down the road as many asset managers as possible would come to understand how very close alliances and collaboration with larger companies were an optimal solution for dealing with an increasingly complex and regulated financial market.
«You can walk fast on your own, but together you can go a long way,» he said.
