The Swiss firm has sold a platform business to a cantonal bank for an undisclosed sum. Also yesterday, Vontobel set out its assets under management growth.

Zurich-headquartered Vontobel said it has agreed to sell cosmofunding, its digital financing platform for private placements, public bonds and loans, to Zürcher Kantonalbank, a Swiss cantonal bank.

The cosmofunding business was launched in 2018. Explaining its decision, Vontobel said that it “reflects Vontobel’s commitment to sharpen its business portfolio, further aligning it with its investment-led strategy."

As part of the agreement, cosmofunding’s employees, technology and customer relationships will transfer to Zürcher Kantonalbank. 

Although it did not disclose financial terms, Vontobel said in its statement yesterday that it expects the transaction to be wrapped up in the first three months of next year.

Since inception, cosmofunding has been involved with more than SFr50 billion ($62.3 billion) of total volume financed.

Separately, Vontobel said that total assets under management rose to SFr239.7 billion as of 30 September this year, up from SFr229.1 billion at the end of last year. 

Within that AuM total, private clients’ money rose to SFr120.9 billion from SFr110.6 billion, the Switzerland-listed firm said in a statement. 

There was SFr3.2 billion in net new money in the nine-months to end-September, against SFr2.6 billion for the whole of 2024.

Client transactional activity was broadly in line with the same period for a year earlier, it said.