The Swiss Structured Products Association (SSPA) has added Banque Pictet & Cie to its ranks. The admission of Banque Pictet & Cie, which joins as a new active member and buy-side representative, is the third addition in less than a month underscoring the trade body’s ambition to represent the entire value chain in the Swiss market as a broad-based industry association including issuers, markets, the buy-side and partners in equal measure.
Founded in Geneva in 1805, Banque Pictet & Cie is a leading European independent wealth and asset manager, with more than CHF435bn (€397.9bn) in assets under management (AUM) or custody as of December 31, 2014. The Pictet Group is owned and managed by seven partners with principles of ownership and succession that have remained unchanged since foundation.
“By developing bespoke solutions for our clients, we appreciate structured products as innovative investment opportunities with a promising performance potential at reasonable costs,” said Julien Christin-Benoit, head of structured products at Banque Pictet & Cie. “Consequently, our SSPA membership underlines our long-term commitment to the Swiss structured products market.”
Banque Pictet & Cie offers sales trading, forex trading, quantitative financial and risk management solutions and structured products, as well as acquisition and coverage of institutional clients, coverage of private wealth management clients, and management of delta one certificates (execution, reshuffle, hedging).
SSPA vice-president and head of structured products at Julius Baer Philipp Rickenbacher said in a statement that strengthening the association’s buy-side members is key to comprehensively representing the interests of the entire industry.
“The membership of Pictet underpins the role of structured products in modern asset management,” said Rickenbacher.
The association represents the interests of 95% of the market volume for structured products in Switzerland and has been working to address its low member diversity by opening the association to buy-side companies and commercial partners since the beginning of the summer.
The SSPA's latest additions include Smarthouse Media, a German financial portal which joined as a passive member and partner, and ITG RFQ-hub, an independent multi-dealer electronic platform which also joined as a new passive member.
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