Rolf Banz on investment
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Switzerland

Inequities in equities?

By Rolf on 12 February 2015

I have written about certain idiosyncrasies of Swiss capital market regulations before. Most Swiss corporations started as family firms and, for a long time, outside shareholders were considered a mere nuisance and treated accordingly. Some remnants of that attitude remain. While there is now a reasonably modern set of rules governing listed firms, there are […]

Posted in Comments/ramblings | Tagged Beliefs, Switzerland

Ethical…?

By Rolf on 13 September 2012

The two big public pension plans in Geneva are in dire straits. The local legislature is considering a bill this week that would merge them and would also provide a capital injection of almost a billion Swiss francs. The funds have pursued what is euphemistically called a mixed financing strategy. Their assets cover less than […]

Posted in Comments/ramblings | Tagged Pension funds, Philosophy, Switzerland

Is Switzerland still a “special case”?

By Rolf on 12 March 2012

Apologies to my non-German speaking readers. The document to which this post refers is in German but its main points are summarized in the post. This first “oldie” post is about a speech that I gave over twenty years ago (in 1989) in Basel to an audience of about 100 Swiss bankers. At the time, […]

Posted in Comments/ramblings, Oldies | Tagged Offshore private banking, Switzerland

Advertising structured products

By Rolf on 22 January 2012

The graph on the left is, in a way, the poster child for all that is wrong with the structured products industry. Julius Baer are using it in their promotional materials to sell Diskontzertifikate or discount certificates. These products are extremely popular in Germany and Switzerland. Their name suggests that they represent a bargain: the […]

Posted in Comments/ramblings | Tagged Structured products, Switzerland

About this weblog and its author

Rolf Banz spent his career in the investment industry in the US, the UK and, most recently, in Switzerland. To older people, he is known as the "father of the small firm effect". This weblog consists of a series of essays and shorter pieces on a range of issues at the intersection of institutional investment and investment theory. Please see this post for a description of the objectives of the weblog and the About page for further information on the author and the site.

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