While life back in Switzerland may have been difficult at times, a noticeable recent trend has been that of Swiss firms promoting asset management in countries such as the UK.

While life back in Switzerland may have been difficult at times due to global pressure on the country’s bank secrecy laws, a noticeable recent trend has been that of Swiss firms promoting their asset management talents in countries such as the UK.

Pictet, Lombard Odier, Sarasin and Julius Baer, for example, have been active. Among the ranks of the younger Swiss houses is Geneva-headquartered SYZ & Co, founded in 1996 and recently mentioned as a possible suitor to the Zurich-based part of Coutts International. (Coutts International has been put up for sale by parent Royal Bank of Scotland.) This is the kind of Swiss house that is arguably carving out a very different kind of business model from what people have been previously used to out of that country.

One of its business lines is the Oyster funds operation and that brand has become better known in recent years. The firm shrugged off any post-Scottish referendum angst late last year by opening an office in Edinburgh. It hopes that in a changed UK wealth management market after the Retail Distribution Review, the market for its Oyster funds range is encouraging.

This publication recently interviewed Xavier Guillon, chief executive of the Oyster investment fund division, a role he has held since late 2010 after joining SYZ & Co in 2007. He has also worked for 15 years at US-headquartered Brown Brothers Harriman, both in New York and London.

“The UK is now a priority market,” Guillon said, when asked about the significance of SYZ & Co’s November announcement that it had opened an office in Edinburgh.

The Oyster brand recognition is already substantial in the Continent and that bodes well for achieving the same result in the UK, Guillon said. "We are very confident that the brand will get more traction."

The brand has a profile among experienced fund selectors, but more noise needs to be generated about it, he said.

"We are more of a confidential brand in the UK and that should change,” he continued.

Until recently, the UK market was not so receptive to cross-border funds such as those provided by SYZ & Co but this is changing, he said, when asked about the growing profile of other Swiss fund brands in the country.

"The environment in terms of regulation and the RDR created a more equal and level playing field for providers,” Guillon said.

The firm launched RDR-compliant share classes for its funds last year – obviously a key step for any firm seeking to operate in the landscape forged by the Retail Distribution Review.

How is SYZ & Co looking to develop the Oyster business?

Guillon explained that there are three phases: to reinforce distribution of its funds and services in Switzerland; secondly, to decentralise the business in Europe to get closer to the clients; and thirdly, to take the investment propositions to markets such as the UK, northern Europe and Asia. The firm, for example, opened a Hong Kong office in 2013 and has opened them in the UK. More British offices are expected.

Scottish worry?
Last September, the financial world was jittery about the Scottish referendum vote that could have seen the UK split apart, with controversy over whether Scottish-based financial services firms would exit the northern country amid fears about the fate of sterling and possible tax hikes. In the end, Scottish voters rejected calls for complete independence, but the saga was a nervous one. What did a Swiss firm, used to operating in a country famed for its referenda and patchwork of cantons, make of the Scottish situation, given that it had opened an Edinburgh office?

Guillon was unfazed: "We had already decided we wanted to cover this region and we kept to our course."

In fact, Guillon preferred to point out what he sees as positive developments at SYZ & Co: "Oyster Funds is adding a number of multi-asset funds, previously reserved for institutional investors, to its product range in order to provide them to a wider investor audience. With a solid 11-year track record in delivering absolute returns, the GBP class fund is well-suited to the needs of UK investors.”

Performance, in the end, is what counts as in the case, for example, of Michael Clements, who joined SYZ in September 2014 as a fund manager and head of the European equities team. A November 2014 factsheet from the firm states that since September 2010 to June 2014, at the Franklin European Growth UCITS fund he previously managed he garnered gains of 67.5 per cent, handily beating the 47.6% for the Stoxx 600. (Clements now manages the Oyster European Opportunities, Oyster European Selection, as well as Oyster Continental European Selection.)

On the fixed income side, for example, the Oyster European Corporate Bonds R EUR portfolio has, since launch on 10 June 203, delivered total gains of 85.3 per cent (as of 31 October 2014), beating the Lipper Global Bond EU Corporates measure at 45.4 per cent.

(To view an earlier interview with SYZ & Co, this time in Geneva, click here.)