Having reached CHF50m in AuM in under five-years, Finanzlab has now set its sighs on Swiss pension funds.

The Finanzlab Multi Index Fund has reached CHF50m (US$64m) in assets under management (AuM) in less than five years.

Building trust in a differentiated investment strategy takes time, especially in the institutional world - Vincent Bonnard

“Reaching CHF50m in AuM is an important milestone, not only because of the size itself, but because it validates the strategy, the consistency of the performance and the confidence investors have progressively built in the fund,” Vincent Bonnard (pictured), founding partner at Finanzlab told SRP.

The fund, which aims to provide an efficient investment in a diversified portfolio of barrier reverse convertible (BRC) products linked to equity indices of the major developed countries, first launched end-2021 with CHF4.5m in AuM.

“We were probably too optimistic when we launched the fund in October 2021 […] at the time, we expected to start with around CHF10m and hoped to reach CHF30m within the first year,” said Bonnard.

In reality, the fund launched with CHF4.5m in AuM and it took around three years to reach CHF30m.

“However, from the very beginning, we deliberately designed the fund in a way that the size of the fund would not negatively impact investors.”

The fund managers opted for a flat total expense ratio (TER) of 0.75% per year, regardless of the fund size. During the first years, the fixed operating costs of the fund were actually higher than the management fees generated, with Finanzlab absorbing the difference itself rather than passing on additional costs to investors.

This allowed the independent financial services provider to approach investors without having the usual size-related fee concerns that often affect smaller funds in their early stages.

“This was an important decision for us, as we wanted to build a long-term and investor-aligned product from the start,” said Bonnard.

While the timing was slower than initially expected, the direction was always the right one, according to Bonnard. “Building trust in a differentiated investment strategy takes time, especially in the institutional world.

“What is particularly encouraging is that most of the AuM so far has been raised through our historical client base of wealth managers, with many relatively small tickets and a very diversified investor base. This has created a very healthy structure with limited concentration risk, even if organic growth through many smaller allocations naturally takes more time.”

What are you hoping to achieve in the next five years?

Vincent Bonnard: We now believe the fund has reached the size and track record required to more actively target our long-term core market, namely Swiss pension funds. Some pension funds have been following us since launch and have been impressed by the combination of performance and low volatility but were initially hesitant because of the fund size. We are now seeing increasing institutional interest and some first allocations have already started.

We strongly believe our strategy can play an important role within institutional portfolios. In some ways, the approach is comparable to CAT bond strategies, as both aim to monetise extreme risks in exchange for recurring premiums. Given the substantial allocations pension funds already dedicate to alternative yield strategies, we believe there is significant long-term potential for our solution within Swiss pension portfolios.

We have also invested significant time and resources to better cover the pension fund market, particularly in German speaking Switzerland, and we are convinced that there is still considerable untapped potential in this segment.

Our next milestone is clearly CHF100m in AuM, which we hope to achieve within the next three years through continued institutional adoption. Beyond that, we see even greater long-term potential for the strategy.

Finanzlab Multi Index Fund – breakdown by issuer as of 30 April 2026

Source: Finanzlab

As of 30 April 2026, the Finanzlab Multi Index Fund had exposure to 10 different issuers: BBVA, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise (BCV), Bank of America (BofA), Basler Kantonalbank (BKB), Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Luzerner Kantonalbank (LUKB), Marex, Natixis and Raiffeisen. Some 9.58% was held in cash.

The average coupon of the products included in the fund is 6.27% pa.

Click the link to read the latest Finanzlab Multi Index Fund factsheet.

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