Basel’s financial establishment is far from worried about being considered off the beaten track. ‘There are a lot of company presentations in Zurich and Geneva; only sometimes in Basel. But then you can lose a lot of time with presentations,’ explains Hans-Rudolf Hufschmid, who heads institutional asset management at Bank Sarasin & Cie, a 156-year-old aristocrat of Swiss banking. In today’s global village where information flows at the very press of a computer button, Hufschmid adds, ‘there’s no big difference between managing money out of Zurich or Basel.’
Gabriel Herrera, who heads the Swiss operations of SBC Brinson, Basel-based Swiss Bank Corporation’s global institutional asset management division, agrees. ‘Five years ago location was important, today the city you are in is irrelevant. We operate in cyberspace.’ SBC Brinson has around $125 bn under management worldwide, about half of this in Switzerland. Indeed, Basel is an asset management center where the players like the personal and electronic touch.
At the start of the 1990s, Basel was in decline as Zurich grabbed an increasing chunk of Switzerland’s financial pie. However, this trend seems to have stopped with increasing globalization of markets in an electronically-networked world. Today, Basel has a strong position as Switzerland’s third largest financial center; and SBC, its major bank, a growing global presence with a heavy emphasis on asset management.
Basel’s geographic position makes the city an easy place to reach; and a comfortable addition to the traditional European roadshow circuit of London, Zurich, Geneva, Paris and Frankfurt. Situated at the knee of the Rhine where the waterway starts its journey north, Basel is a border town nestled between Switzerland, Germany and France. And geography, says Hufschmid, has made Basel into an open-minded town.
Outward Looking
Although German-speaking, Basel is also francophone, cultivating crossborder relations with both France and Germany; and reaching out to its neighbors through the city’s strong support for Switzerland’s integration into Europe despite the country’s rejection of such a proposal in a referendum in 1992. Each working day tens of thousands of French and Germans cross the border to work in Basel and roads and railways which crisscross Europe tend to meet here. Although Zurich’s Kloten Airport is Switzerland’s global hub, Basel is well served by Switzerland’s regional carrier Crossair. The airline connects Kloten to Basel but, more importantly, it also provides convenient flights between major and smaller European cities. And Crossair can be a joy to fly. True to the bon-vivant style of its cigar-puffing founder and chief executive officer Moritz Suter, Crossair has retained the personal service favored in more aristocratic civil aviation times.
Traditionally, wealthy French and German families have used nearby Basel bankers to invest their fortunes. And through generations customers of Basel banks have come from even further afield so that a respectable slice of the $1,500-$2,000 bn said to be managed for international private clients by Swiss banks is administered out of Basel.
On the institutional side, SBC is Switzerland’s leader in the mutual fund business, managing around $50 bn in assets. And as smaller Swiss investors turn more to the equities markets, SBC has been aggressively providing an increasing range of fund opportunities. Meanwhile, Bank Sarasin has earned a reputation for supplying funds in emerging markets and for ecologically-friendly companies.
Basel employee pension funds are currently among the country’s biggest. Take Novartis, a global leader in the pharmaceutical industry which emerged at the end of 1996 from the union of Ciba and Sandoz. The Novartis employees pension fund contains some SFr13.4 bn, of which SFr4.8 bn will be in equity. And that’s based on 1996 figures – the most up-to-date information available – which will undoubtedly have grown with 1997 equity market developments.
Pension funds don’t have to be from Basel, however, to use Basel-based banks. In Bank Sarasin’s client documentation, pension fund officials from such companies as Asea Brown Boveri of Baden and Caterpillar (Overseas) SA of Geneva plug Sarasin’s investment expertise.
A recent study conducted by Bank Julius Baer concluded that overall Swiss institutional investors are likely to manage institutional funds worldwide of around SFr2,000 bn by the year 2000. That is equivalent to around twice the current capitalization of both the Swiss stock and bond markets. Faced with the volume limits of the Swiss capital markets, Baer concludes that as assets grow, investments will become increasingly international as managers seek opportunities abroad.
Interests Abroad
In holdings of non-domestic European equities, Technimetrics ranks Basel as the sixth European center at $18.9 bn; in the holding of Asia-Pacific equities, number twelve at $3.4 bn; in US equities, number eight at $9.2 bn; and in total institutional equities, also number eight at $66.8 bn. But no doubt this underestimates the influence of Basel bankers. SBC, the city’s most powerful player, manages equities out of each region and city in the world which it considers most suitable. There is also no information on the equity holdings of the army of rich private clients who use Basel-based banks.
Once you arrive in Basel, the town is easy to get around. Bank Sarasin, for example, is a five-minute walk from the railway station at the edge of Basel’s charming Old Town. It’s surrounded by medieval houses and squares filled with colorful boutiques, bars, restaurants and art galleries.
On sunny days, Old Town cafŽs are filled with Baslers enjoying a quick beer and visitors can easily find an attractive spot between appointments. A favorite square is the Marktplatz dominated by a 16th century handsomely decorated town hall, in turn towered over by one of the most romantic gothic cathedrals along the Rhine.
So the setting is attractive, but how should one approach asset managers here? One-on-one meetings are most likely to succeed with Basel’s fund managers and analysts. If they are interested in large presentations, Basel bankers are prepared to go to Zurich which is only one hour away. In today’s fast-moving markets, Baslers certainly want to hear the news at the same time as their Zurich colleagues. ‘Of course, it is annoying to waste time on the train, but we always go to Zurich if a company is important enough,’ notes Bank Sarasin analyst Franco Catanzaro.
Gabriel Herrera shows little interest in traditional presentations. ‘Roadshows are much less important today,’ suggests Herrera. ‘We much prefer to visit companies rather than have them come to Basel.’ And, he adds, visits are done by SBC Brinson’s on-the-spot organizations: for example, out of Chicago in the US; London, Basel and Zurich in Europe; Sydney in Australia. Then cyberspace takes over as information about the meeting is distributed electronically around the globe to SBC Brinson offices, says Herrera.
Consultants agree that unless a foreign company is a sure drawcard, like Microsoft, larger presentations have become much less popular among Swiss asset managers and analysts – Basel is no exception. ‘There’s a general fatigue with larger presentations,’ says Michael Foley of Michael Foley Associates in Geneva, a PR firm working with non-Swiss companies. ‘There’s too many of them and it has become more difficult to get a good attendance. Perhaps the reason is that the information divulged doesn’t warrant the amount of time spent out of the office.’
Basically, says Trimedia Communications director Joerg Sigrist, who knows the Basel financial scene well, ‘the days are over when fund managers and analysts want to sit with 200 others. One-on-one meetings are the best way to get a message across.’ There are, of course, exceptions to this rule when the news is so important that everyone should receive it at the same time. At such times, the desire to get information from one-on-ones goes out of the window.
But if you arrange a one-on-one meeting, you better ensure that you’ve got something to say. The worst sin, say financial analysts and fund managers based in the city, is for a company to take up their precious time and then not say any more than can be read in annual reports, press clippings or on the Internet.
Let’s Do Lunch
Breakfast and dinner meetings are far from popular, so stick to lunch. And make sure you choose a restaurant near to where your guests work. Basel is relatively small, but most Swiss hate to lose time traveling. A popular hangout is the Kunsthalle, where the cream of business, old families and the arty crowd all like to go.
The traditional Schuetzenhaus is another popular spot and where the Bank of International Settlements holds its annual lunch in June after presenting its annual report. If you want to go really upmarket and take your time, the venue has to be Restaurant Bruderholz, considered one of the best restaurants in Switzerland. If you want an historic background, there is always the restaurant of the atmospheric Hotel Drei Koenige overlooking the Rhine, one of Europe’s oldest hotels and a house where Napoleon stayed.
Never try to make an appointment in Basel during Fasnacht in mid-February. This weird and beautiful carnival is a three-day, non-stop blow-out; and the person you want to meet is likely to be out in the streets in medieval costume playing Guggenmusig (strident brass-band music on old and dented instruments) to drive away the devils of winter. Although the Swiss have taken to spreading vacations through the year, it can also still be difficult to reach people in July and August.
After making contact, it is crucial to maintain relationships and make sure fund managers and analysts are kept abreast of what is going on at your company. This doesn’t necessarily mean frequent visits because in today’s multi-communication world, says Sigrist, there are a number of ways of keeping contact, from the old-fashioned telephone to the Web. Most importantly, analysts and fund managers demand that when they have questions an investor relations officer or their equivalent should be speedily available. There is nothing worse, they say, than being left waiting when speculation or news is likely to move a company’s share price.
Recently, Geneva banker Guenther Woernle started publishing a comprehensive Swiss asset management directory in English with names, addresses and some indication as to company importance. The Wernlin Directory can be ordered by contacting: The Wernlin Directory, PO Box 3777, 1211 Geneva 3, Switzerland. Although the directory often lacks details of the amount handled by companies – because such numbers usually are not released – the directory could prove useful in setting up your Basel schedule.
Top 5 Fund Management Institutions (in alphabetical order)
- Bank Sarasin & Cie
- Banque Nationale de Paris (Suisse)
- Basler Versicherungs-Gesellschaft
- Les Fils Dreyfus & Cie
- SBC
Source: Technimetrics Inc
Tourist Information
WHERE TO PRESENT
Hilton Hotel
Aeschengraben 31,
4002 Basel
Tel: +41 61 275 6600
Fax: +41 61 275 6650
International Hotel
Steinentorstr. 25
4001 Basel
Tel: +41 61 227 2727
Fax: +41 61 227 2828
Messe Basel
Messeplatz
4000 Basel
Tel: +41 61 686 2020
Fax: +41 61 686 2188
WHERE TO STAY
As well as the Hilton and the International also consider the following:
Hotel Basel
Muenzgasse 12
4051 Basel
Tel: +41 61 264 6800
Fax: +41 61 264 6811
Hotel Drei Koenige am Rhein
Blumenrain 8
4001 Basel
Tel: +41 61 261 5252
Fax: +41 61 261 2153
Hotel Euler
Centralbahnplatz 14
4002 Basel
Tel: +41 61 272 4500
Fax: +41 61 271 5000
WHERE TO EAT
Kunsthalle
Steinenberg 7
4051 Basel
Tel: +41 61 272 4233
Schuetzenhaus
Schuetzenmattstr. 56
4051 Basel
Tel: +41 61 272 6760
Bruderholz
Bruderholzalle 42
4059 Basel
Tel: +41 61 361 8222
Donati
St. Johannes-Vorstadt 48
4056 Basel
Tel: +41 61 322 0919
WHERE TO GO
Kunstmuseum
St. Alban-Graben 16
4001 Basel
Tel: +41 61 271 0828
An important museum housing collections of major art works spanning from the Renaissance to the late 20th century.
Antikenmuseum
Basel and Sammlung Ludwig
St. Albangraben 5
4010 Basel
Tel: +41 61 271 2202
Contains one of Europe’s best regarded and most fascinating collections of ancient art with regularly changing exhibitions.
Museum fuer Gegenwartskunst
St. Alban-Rheinweg 60
4052 Basel
Tel: +41 61 272 8183
A major center of contemporary art and culture.
