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SYZ Bank’s offshore advisory operation in the Bahamas has been bought by two of its Caribbean-based executives who plan to launch their own advisory and investment business.
The Swiss private bank has sold a controlling stake in the business to Werner Gruner and Daniel-Marc Brunner, who have been running its Bahamas-based office since 2016.
The pair are in the process of rebranding the business as Nexor which will offer portfolio management and investment advisory services, a suite of in-house funds as well as funds from SYZ and other third-party asset managers.
SYZ will keep a minority stake in the new company Nexor and said its decision to sell its offshore operation in the Bahamas was driven by a desire to centralize its business in its native Switzerland.
Gruner told Citywire Americas that Nexor their current base of clients in Latin America would have access to in-house funds developed by Capitor, a financial consultancy firm and fund manager Gruner also serves on as chairman.
‘The advantage that we have with Nexor is that we’re working together with SYZ because they are a minority shareholder though we’re not limited to only working with them. The Bahamas is a great jurisdiction, it has a lot of value in the Western hemisphere especially for Latin America,’ he said.
They would also give clients access to third party funds based on what clients were searching for throughout the transition process, said Gruner.
‘The great thing about this transaction is that for the clients, nothing much changes for them. If anything, they now have access to a larger universe of options,’ he added.
At the moment, the operation is managed between Gruner and Brunner, though they are looking to add more hires in the future as their growth plans come to fruition. Gruner said that their vision for the firm would be to maintain itself as a ‘boutique investment firm.’
‘We don’t see ourselves with hundreds of clients simply because we want to be able to give quality time to a limited number of clients at the moment. That means we prefer to deal with complex accounts and family structures that require a global approach,’ he said.
Gruner has been in the financial industry for approximately 17 years according to his LinkedIn, starting with Credit Suisse where he spent seven before moving to Julius Baer’s Bahamas operation, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before working at SYZ Bank, he spent three years at Andorran private bank AndBank.
Daniel Marc-Brunner has more than 30 years’ experience in the financial industry, having worked at UBS for more than 18 years while also having served at AndBank as well as Credit Suisse, per LinkedIn.