Swiss wealth management has a reputation.

If you have your money in Switzerland, you've made it.

It is a factor that Swiss banks benefit from.

For them, German money is also a factor, even if they are perhaps not the largest of all Swiss banks, like the St. Galler Kantonalbank (SGKB).

After all, 15 percent of the customers came from Germany, says Sven Thielmann, head of the German subsidiary.

Not everyone actually has their money in Switzerland.

But for the bank it makes no difference.

Martin Hock

Editor in Business.

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In addition to the nimbus, Thielmann also sees solid reasons for investing in or through a bank in the Alpine republic.

Like the sense of security.

"The Swiss franc has never seen a currency reform," he says.

And it has been around since 1850. In addition, the SGKB is listed, but 51 percent belongs to the canton of St. Gallen and, not least because of the liability of the canton, has the best rating of all listed banks, says Thielmann not without reason Proud.

And since it was founded in 1868, the bank has never ended a financial year with a loss.

In 2017, SGKB then decided to expand beyond the canton in what it considered to be its core markets.

So the expansion of the German subsidiary, which was founded in 2009 more as a representative office, made sense.

Any combination of different strategies

SGKB wants to win customers with its concept of modular asset management.

Ten strategies were identified for this purpose, five for stocks, four for bonds and one for commodities, which can be combined with one another as desired.

Some of these are quantitatively oriented, some are classical asset management, i.e. based on the assessment of the house.

Individual titles are also acquired in the latter area.

The quantitative area is covered by exchange-traded funds (ETF).

It is also this that differs significantly from the classic purchase of shares or bonds.

In the discount strategy, for example, discount certificates can be used.

This strategy is safety-oriented and generates income from the volatility of the stock markets.

"Although it has lower returns, it also has lower volatility," says Thielmann: "In times of high volatility, significantly better returns can even be achieved." Other strategies aim to avoid losses, but the climate strategy does not just consist of buying "greener “ Shares, but also in the short sale of so-called brown paper.

It goes without saying that these services are not available for little money.

"We offer our services in Germany to customers with assets of one million euros, but also to associations or foundations," says Thielmann.

SGKB currently manages 2.6 billion euros in assets in Germany, 80 percent of which is in asset management.

For a number of years, the fund has been in great demand there as a shell for practical reasons, says Thielmann: "Customers have fewer transactions in their portfolio as a result, which makes it more manageable for them." a special fund.

In addition, SGKB also has a number of public funds on offer, but not all of them are readily available to private investors in Germany.

Since the end of June, the sustainability fund “Carbon Focus Fund” launched jointly with the company Finreon has been new.