Best Swiss Asset Managers: Rating Criteria Explained

Anyone searching for the best wealth manager in Switzerland finds different names depending on the rating and the period. This article first names the winners of the 2025 BILANZ rating, then explains how to tell what an award actually says.

The most important facts at a glance

• A credible rating compares real client portfolios, not model portfolios, and weighs return against the risk actually taken.
• A winner over 12 months and a winner over 36 or 60 months answer different questions. Rankings are comparable within a risk class, not across risk classes.
• An award is a title granted for a given year and category; a ranking position is a rank within an ongoing list. Both deserve to be named, never blurred together.
• FINMA licence, fee structure, custodian bank and the handling of conflicts of interest matter as much as the rating itself. No ranking captures them.

Who is the best wealth manager in Switzerland?

There is no single best wealth manager in Switzerland, because the result depends on the period and on the risk class. In the 2025 BILANZ rating, the title “Wealth Manager of the Year” went to Everon over twelve months, to PostFinance over 24 months, to Wenzinger & Tschan over 36 months and to Tareno over 60 months.

The basis was 146 real client portfolios from 37 participating wealth managers, evaluated by firstfive for BILANZ issue 03/2025. The score rests on the Sharpe ratio, that is return relative to risk, in three of four risk classes, and the maximum is 100 points. Some margins were narrow. Over twelve months Everon led PostFinance by 0.31 points, 84.50 against 84.19. Over 60 months Tareno reached the full 100 points. The rating is published every year. For the 2026 rating the full list of winners by period is not publicly available, so this section relies on the 2025 edition.

What a rating actually measures

Ratings such as firstfive’s, the basis on which the business magazine BILANZ names Switzerland’s best asset managers, compare real client portfolios on a single data basis. Participating asset managers report their portfolios, and firstfive scores them on return, risk, and the Sharpe ratio, the relationship between the two. What gets rated is live client business, not a model portfolio built under laboratory conditions.

That is the first filter a credible rating has to pass: one consistent data basis across several providers, not self-reported single figures. An asset manager who shows off only their best strategy says little about their overall client business. A rating that compares real portfolios says considerably more.

Costs belong in a complete picture too. A high gross return with high fees can end up below a lower gross return with low fees, once fees are deducted. Anyone reading a rating should ask whether the published figure is stated before or after costs.

Why the time period changes what a result means

BILANZ and firstfive grant awards for different time periods: twelve months, 24 months, 36 months, in some cases up to 60 months. That is not a side detail; it changes the question being answered.

A twelve-month winner responded best during one particular market phase. That is a real achievement, but a snapshot. A 36 or 60-month winner has been through several market cycles and stayed consistently strong throughout, which is a different claim, and usually a more reliable one. Reading the two categories side by side without checking the period means comparing two different things as if they were one.

For your own review, that means always reading the evaluation period an award covers, not just the rank.

Risk classes are not a shared scale

firstfive scores strategies within risk classes, typically four levels from conservative to dynamic. A comparison makes sense within one class, because every participant has taken on a similar level of risk. Across classes, the comparison falls apart: a dynamic strategy with a high equity weighting will almost inevitably post a higher return in a good stock market year than a conservative strategy designed to avoid exactly that. That does not make the dynamic strategy the better choice, only a different one.

Anyone reading a rating should therefore know the risk class of the awarded portfolio and compare return figures only within the same class.

An award and a ranking position are two different things

The distinction most readers miss: an award such as “Wealth Manager of the Year” is a title granted for a specific year and category, issued with a certificate. A ranking position is a rank within an ongoing list that gets recalculated several times a year. Firms sitting at the top of an interim ranking do not automatically hold an award because of it. Conversely, an award granted for a given year stands, even if a later interim ranking shows different figures.

For your own assessment: a named title with a year, category and period carries more weight than an unattributed claim of “ranked first” without those details.

What a rating never captures

A rating assesses the return and risk of a past period. Four points sit entirely outside that and can be checked independently.

The first is the FINMA licence. Anyone managing client assets professionally in Switzerland needs a FINMA licence as a wealth manager (Art. 17 FinIA). Their application must include proof that they are subject to supervision by a Supervisory Organisation (Art. 7 para. 2 FinIA). The licensing requirement has applied since 2020. Firms already operating before then had until the end of 2022 to comply with the Act and submit their application (Art. 74 para. 2 FinIA). The public FINMA licence register shows whether a provider holds the licence, regardless of how it has fared in any rating.

No ranking captures the fee structure. A flat management fee, a performance-based component, entry charges on individual products: this structure determines how much of the published return actually reaches the client.

Then there is the custodian bank and safekeeping. An asset manager makes the investment decisions, but the assets themselves sit with a separate custodian bank. Where exactly that account is held and how safekeeping is organised belongs in the review; a rating says nothing about it.

And finally, the handling of conflicts of interest. Where a provider runs its own funds or products, there is an incentive to overweight them in the portfolio. The Financial Services Act (FinSA) requires financial service providers to take precautions against conflicts of interest and to disclose where a disadvantage cannot be ruled out. How a provider puts this into practice appears in no rating.

Where Everon stands in this rating

Everon itself takes part in this rating, so this section concerns its own results. Everon has been recognised in every year of the BILANZ rating since 2020, in varying categories. In the 2025 rating Everon was named “Wealth Manager of the Year” for the twelve-month period with 84.50 out of 100 points. Everon’s dynamic strategy returned 47.63 percent in calendar year 2024, which according to BILANZ was the highest twelve-month return in the rating (release on the 2025 rating). Volatility (standard deviation) was 18.23 percent, and the dynamic risk class stands for a high equity weighting.

In the 2026 rating Everon won the top return category over 36 months in the dynamic risk class. From January 2023 to December 2025 the strategy returned 115.98 percent with a standard deviation of 17.31 percent and also ranked first by Sharpe ratio in the firstfive ranking (release on the 2026 rating). All seven years, with category and evidence, are listed on the awards page. The titles do not replace checking the four points from the previous section.

More on how to place multi-family offices and independent asset managers in Switzerland is in the Multi-Family Office & Wealth Succession knowledge hub.

Frequently asked questions about asset manager ratings

Who is the best wealth manager in Switzerland?

That depends on the period. In the 2025 BILANZ rating, the title “Wealth Manager of the Year” went to Everon over twelve months, to PostFinance over 24 months, to Wenzinger & Tschan over 36 months and to Tareno over 60 months. The basis was 146 real client portfolios from 37 wealth managers. The full list of winners for the 2026 rating is not publicly available.

What exactly does an asset manager rating such as firstfive’s measure?

firstfive compares the real portfolios of participating asset managers on a single, uniform data basis: return, risk, and the Sharpe ratio as the relationship between the two. It rates portfolios from live client business, not model portfolios or backtests.

Why do the awards differ by time period?

A ranking over 12 months shows who responded best during a specific market phase. A ranking over 36 or 60 months shows who stayed consistent across several market cycles. Both are meaningful, but they answer different questions. A provider leading over twelve months does not have to hold the same position over five years.

What is the difference between an award and a ranking position?

An award such as “Wealth Manager of the Year” is a title granted for a specific year and category. A ranking position is a rank within an ongoing list that is recalculated several times a year. A provider can hold a strong position in several rankings at once without that becoming a granted award.

Is a good rating enough to choose an asset manager?

No. A rating assesses the return and risk of a past period. It says nothing about the FINMA licence, the fee structure, the custodian bank, or the handling of conflicts of interest. These four points can be checked independently of the rating, for instance in the public FINMA register.

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