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English translation of the article in french : Le gestionnaire Auris veut croître à Genève | Agefi.com
The Chairman of Auris Wealth Management, Nicolas Walther, has been devoting himself entirely to this Swiss subsidiary of the Auris Gestion group since June 2024.
January 09, 2025, 8:00 p.m.
The Geneva-based asset manager Auris Wealth Management (WM) wants to fully assume its role as a consolidator. Rather than targeting client portfolios, he prioritizes working with new partners to ensure future success. Its president Nicolas Walther, who grew up and began his career in Switzerland, then spent nearly forty years abroad. After creating and managing the Lombard Odier Gestion subsidiary in Paris in 2000, he co-founded four years later and managed Auris Gestion in the French capital for 20 years.
The group, which employs 80 people, including 12 in Geneva, now boasts assets under management of €4 billion and generated a turnover of €25 million in 2023, showing "very strong growth", says Nicolas Walther. Like the second co-founder Marc de Saint-Denis, he does not come from an asset management background, but rather considers himself a "specialist in project management and business creation". Founded in 2015, the Geneva-based subsidiary Auris WM has assets under management (AuM) of CHF 500 million, half of which comes from private clients and the other half from the investment fund distribution business. The next objective that the group has set itself is to cross the 5 billion euro mark in assets under management by 2027.
The capital of the subsidiary, whose board of directors is composed exclusively of Swiss citizens, remains 100% in the hands of Auris Gestion in Paris. However, the managers obtain "preferred shares, which gives them the status of partners. It is a necessary act to show that we are a partnership and it gives customers the message that the partners are responsible," explains the president of Auris WM in an exclusive interview with L'Agefi. While the managers enjoy total independence in terms of their management decisions, there are collaborations for research or IT support.
Trial balloon
According to Nicolas Walther, the first five years in Geneva were an opportunity to "test the waters" and the project only really started in 2021. After leaving the position of CEO of Auris Gestion in June 2024, "I am now fully dedicated to the Swiss adventure, because I still have the energy and the motivation," said the chairman, who also sits as a member of the supervisory board of the parent company. To develop the business in Switzerland, he intends to proceed according to the model of a "house of partners" set up in Paris. "In Geneva too, there are regulatory barriers to entry and there are inheritance issues. We have shown that we know how to manage them well," insists Nicolas Walther.
Auris WM has recently welcomed two new entities. In 2022, the company integrated the know-how of Gadd Wealth Management's key managers as part of an asset deal. And last year, it merged with Bastions Partners Office (BPO), a company with "very competent managers, who are looking for growth drivers," says Nicolas Walther. What interests him is not so much the way in which they carry out their management activity, an area in which he says he trusts them, but "that the project works".
The manager has drawn up several profiles of the managers likely to join Auris WM. He emphasizes his attachment to the entrepreneurial spirit, which is also the basis of their remuneration. For example, faced with rising incompressible costs, an entrepreneurial manager may want to "achieve synergies" by joining a group, while contributing his ideas.
Regulation as an opportunity
The stricter regulation of independent asset managers in Switzerland is creating new opportunities. Changes that Nicolas Walther says he anticipated and which are part of the reasons for his return to the Swiss market. "We almost wish it had happened more abruptly. Once you are on the right side of the regulations, you can build on it," he says. As a first step, Auris WM set up the necessary structures in terms of finance and administration, risk management, middle office and compliance. "We can accommodate 500 million, or even a billion in outstanding customer assets tomorrow," says the manager.
In order to speed up the process, the group has a fund, Andera Acto, "which comes to offer a line of credit if necessary" for development projects in both France and Switzerland, without calling into question its independence, assures the president of Auris WM.