Swiss Life Continues to Orient From Real Estate Asset Management and Advice to Fees

The development of Swiss Life has been hampered over the years due to the structure of the Swiss long-term savings market being overshadowed by a business that offers guaranteed mandatory minimum returns and the declining yields of Swiss government bonds. However, we believe Swiss Life is an evolving business that is increasingly orienting to deriving earnings from fees. Of its three sources of income—savings, risk, and fees—income from fees has grown to over a third. The source of these fees stretches across advice and asset management and Swiss Life is a slightly different business here than most. We think Swiss Life's advisory business is one of the strongest within our European Insurance coverage as it provides high-quality advice to more discerning clients and takes a long-term approach. Advisors tend to take their time and focus on the characteristics and circumstances of each client and hammer out specific goals and products. We think Swiss Life has extended this line to most core markets beyond its domestic one, focusing on key wealth transfer markets and Germany, where the business is number two in the market for advice. The emphasis is on helping customers build enough wealth to lead a self-determined life and we think Swiss Life’s dedication to providing advice is further highlighted by its domestic residential real estate broking service Immopulse. The business has also built on its core and market-leading domestic BVG autonomous and semiautonomous solutions business by acquiring ElipsLife.