Thomas Zeltner, the son of deceased top banker Juerg Zeltner, has built his own wealth management firm. finews.com interviews him about following in his father's footsteps.
Since October, Thomas Zeltner has been working with co-founder Kim Wirth and a small team to build Zeltner & Co. He is the son of the former top UBS executive and Quintet manager Juerg Zeltner, who died in 2020 at the age of 52, although his presence is still clearly felt at the new wealth manager.
«The name is his. I have to earn the name on the logo first,» the younger Zeltner emphasizes.
Zeltner & Co's plans as a Finma-licensed wealth manager involve choosing specific investment projects and converting them into investable products while offering selected families both classical and diversified wealth management solutions. Zeltner himself has been working for his family's family office since 2015 and has headed it since his father's death.
Not Another Equity Fund
The start capital of the new company is comes from him and Wirth. It all started with an idea they both had.
«Kim and I met while studying at the University of Zurich. We realized that we thought about investing in the same way and that we wanted to build something together,» Zeltner says. His only requirement was that it would be something entirely new and not just another equity fund.
Then Wirth called to say he had found someone who could store industrial metals used for securitization in Switzerland.
Product Launch
They went on to launched an actively managed securitized certificate with Swiss Industrial Metal AMC and two metals experts in July 2021 based on cobalt, nickel, indium, hafnium, and copper and have since managed to post attractive returns compared with equities. Some of the metals have doubled in price, which has helped the company gain new investors.
«When I saw how easy it was to get a highly sought after financial product up and running, I decided to start my own company,» Zeltner says.
Now, the wealth manager will be the base from which they create further AMC structures based on the founder's ideas. They have already launched the Crypto Currency Frontier AMC managed by Demelza Hays, who is the research head of the «Cointelegraph» portal and is seen as a key industry luminary for crypto-currencies.
Private Lending
At the end of August, Zeltner wants to go live with Private Lending AMC. «We are using the strong contact we have with wealthy clients to help smaller banks on the lending side», Zeltner says. The principle behind everything is that the clients will jump in when banks don't want to loan out the money. The risk for the company is more manageable. As with Lombard lending, the debtors use their extensive private wealth as collateral.
Zeltner & Co's bread and butter, in contrast, diversified investment management, is not quite as sexy, Zeltner says, but it is still the most reasonable option for wealthy families, he adds.
A key aspect of the new wealth manager is that it does not charge any administrative fees as the investment team sets the central allocation for his own family office.
Pre-defined Investments
«I don't get why I should charge clients for the same process again,» Zeltner says. The catch? By not being charged administrative fees, which gives them a leg up on performance, clients agree to invest a certain pre-defined level of money in the firm's own products.
The products are in high demand although the Zeltner family itself remains the largest investor.
Originally, Zeltner junior never intended to go it alone. At first, he had wanted to work with his father but his death took that opportunity away. He has however learned a great deal from many of his father's colleagues.
Banks & Next Gens
As a so-called Next Gen, there were only two things he could do. Be convinced that he was unable to be as successful as predecessor generations and just enjoy life, or do something that at least equals or surpasses their achievements.
«My father set a very high benchmark. But I am an athlete and I am working to overtake it every single day.»
Zeltner has views on what makes a wealth manager effective in today's world. «Next-Gens are generally well educated in economic and legal matters and they have a high basic knowledge of financial investments», he maintains knowingly.
Many of them believe that they can build their own diversified portfolio and banks are losing their hold on them. For Zeltner & Co, this is a unique opportunity to get into areas that Next Gen itself does not yet know about and is also «where they are unique,» Zeltner says.
