4.6 Investors in Switzerland

Investment funds, pension funds, and insurance companies are some of the largest institutional investors in Switzerland. The tables below provide an overview of the largest players.

Largest Providers on the Swiss Investment Fund Market

Local investment funds (table above) invest around 49 percent of their funds in stocks but of course not only in Swiss stocks. It should be noted here that in comparison with their international – i.e. English and American – competitors, Swiss fund providers are significantly smaller. The four largest asset managers in the world, BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity and State Street, all manage more than CHF 3,000 billion, which is several orders of magnitude more than the largest Swiss provider. At the same time, the English and American fund houses are the largest providers of ETFs and are best at exploiting the trend toward passive investment strategies. 

On average, Swiss pension funds (see table below) invest around 30 percent in shares. Almost two thirds of the equity portion consists of international equities. Bonds and real estate are the two other major categories.

Largest Pension Funds in Switzerland

For specific sectors and market niches (small caps for example), there are many other actors that can definitely play a notable role in the context of Investor Relations, even if they are not one of the national heavyweights. One example is active equity funds for Swiss small caps, which are listed in the table below.

Active equity funds for Swiss Small and Mid-Caps