The Discreet Powerhouse
Would you ever sell ALL your assets and place the cash in a vault inside your house? If you have ALL your assets in any single jurisdiction, you are essentially betting everything you own on the long-term viability of that one country.
Wealthy Latin Americans learned long ago to secure most of their assets in the United States in U.S. Dollars to protect against the inevitable currency devaluations, confiscatory taxes, and governmental expropriations.
As an American, you may have thought about diversifying at least a part of your wealth in a different country as a backup to whatever future catastrophes might occur. Many Americans seek jurisdictional diversification but wondered how to go about it.
The world’s most secure country
Pilotage highlights why top performing clients choose Switzerland for financial endurance and shelter.
Going back several centuries as the pioneers of Private Banking, Switzerland is an oasis of peace and prosperity. That’s why clients today work with Pilotage Advisors to benefit from the lessons learned from such resolute history.
By keeping assets in a relative position of strength with protection allows our clients to make the most of once in a decade opportunity. Today, our clients have the peace of mind of having their assets secured while positioned to take advantage of long-term global returns. To be in such a position, one must prepare for it, plan for it and be disciplined to execute.
This mentality and philosophy that we share with our clients is why our investment advisory firm choose Switzerland as our base of operations. Longevity, security, stability, survivability and strength are values that we find alignment with Switzerland – it is part of having the ‘financial bunker’ – and today these reasons are more relevant than ever.
Haven for Global Financial Offices
Out of survey of 300 global family offices we conducted – top performing clients have at least one investment and custody account outside of their home country and Switzerland is the top choice.
One reason is Switzerland’s culture of fiduciary responsibility, along with a high level of competence in administering and executing the clients wishes.
While Covid-19 is exposing how delicate countries, economies and markets really are, that is not the case everywhere. Here in Switzerland 80% of the economy remained operational, banks capital adequacy ratios are actually increasing to over 20% (for comparison the US is around 12%), unemployment has only risen from 2.5% to 2.9% with the expectation that it will top out at 4.4%, inflation doesn’t budge at 1% and the Swiss Franc continues to be the bedrock in uncertain times.
It is quite a contrasting picture relative to developed nations whose staggering economic metrics most likely will result in the weakening of the dollar and a rise in inflation – outcomes the Fed and White House have openly wanted and actually need.
Since no crisis must go to waste, we are also observing an unprecedented centralization of power and dependency in favor of governments. Some for good reason, such as limiting the freedom of movement and access in times of a pandemic, but it will be interesting to see how these overarching powers will be curtailed post crisis.
History has shown that when economies and debt are stretched to its limits combined with hardship and limitations on the population, certain freedoms are exchanged for safety. Many times, over the last century, some of those curtailed freedoms included the freedom to move capital. Time will tell if the post-crisis world will see restrictions in that respect.
These are just a few of the many reasons why the world holds a third of its wealth in Switzerland and why high performing clients seek financial refuge in the best capitalized, most consistent and stable jurisdiction in the world. With the current outlook, today seems to be a good time to consider having a Swiss account and advisor.
To serve and support our client’s investment and longevity goals, Pilotage operates a multi-custody, multi-currency and multi asset platform. The Swiss Private Banks on our platform maintain some of the highest capital adequacy ratios with unrivalled global outreach to book various currencies, investments and tailored credit solutions to ensure freedom of capital, access to world markets and service continuity.
There seems to be a perception of restriction for US clients which is nothing more than a stigma. As one of the first and largest independent advisory firms serving US clients with global banking needs in Switzerland, Pilotage has and always will continue to work with US Clients in achieving their goals, be it maintaining global purchasing power, asset protection & diversification and perpetual wealth.