Investment

Chart of the Month – Swiss Made

by Marie-Caroline Fonta and Pierre Mouton

Swiss Made

Source: Bloomberg. Notz Stucki
Source: Bloomberg, Notz Stucki

The Swiss equity market is a strange animal which exhibits pretty unique characteristics: in a small country in terms of size and population, no less than 4 mega multinationals are listed on the stock market, and completely distort the average metrics traditionally used to assess the attractiveness of an index. The famous 4 are Nestlé, Novartis, Roche and UBS which, combined, reach close to CHF 760 bln in market cap!

As a reminder, there are three indices for the Swiss market:

1) The SMI, composed of the largest and most liquid 20 companies.
2) The SPI, representing the broad market and composed of 212 companies.
3) The SPIEX, which is simply the SPI without the 20 stocks of the SMI.

Table Swiss Made

As is often the case, there are many wonders to discover when looking under the surface. The universe of Swiss listed companies comprises many world leaders in niche products or industries, with a wide variety of specialties. Do a lot of non-Swiss investors know something about Sonova, or Belimo, or Forbo Holding? Certainly not, despite the fact that these three companies are integrated world leaders: hearing systems for Sonova, Belimo for air-volume controls and Forbo for flooring and moving systems. And these are just three examples among many others.

While we don’t question the strong positions of the big leaders, we think investors interested in Swiss equities would lose the most attractive part of the market by focusing on the SMI. Historical performances strongly confirm this view: the SPIEXX index has outperformed the SPI and the SMI over 5, 10 or 15 years by a wide margin. Let’s also remember that compared to other markets, these performances have been done in CHF, by far the best currency in the world.

So when we manage our Swiss equity fund DGC Swiss Excellence, we pay attention to these smaller companies which are decisive contributors to investors’ returns over time. Although we invest into the larger companies, our portfolio also holds 80 companies which are not in the SMI Index. And they add value: as we focus on Price Earnings Growth, Earnings Momentum, Free Cash Flow Generation and low levels of debt, the chart of the month shows that our portfolio shows better or identical attributes than the “Big 4” for these metrics. And there’s no reason to believe it will reverse any time soon!

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Antonio Mira joined NS Partners in 2006 as Group Chief Financial Officer. He heads the corporate functions and is involved in coordinating and implementing the decisions of the Executive Committee.
An experienced bank auditor, Antonio started his career in 1995 with Arthur Andersen, where he worked for some 7 years before joining Ernst & Young in 2002 as a Senior Manager.
Antonio is a Swiss chartered accountant and a Business graduate of Lausanne University (HEC).

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Sébastien Poiret joined NS Partners in 2008 and manages funds of hedge funds and private client mandates. He also oversees the development of the Group’s offices in Mauritius.

Prior to joining NS Partners, he served as a Trader, Head of Manager research and Portfolio Manager in the USA and Switzerland for a single hedge fund (1998-2004) and for Optimal (2004-2008), Grupo Santander’s fund-of-hedge funds operations.

Sébastien holds a Bachelor’s degree in Corporate Finance from the ESPEME Business School (EDHEC Group) and an MBA in Finance and Economics from the Institute of Business Administration, both in Nice.

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Abir Oreibi joined the Board of the NS Partners Group in 2018, where she brings her truly international perspective and rich experience.
Among many other ventures, Abir set up Alibaba.com’s first European office. After living and working in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Bangkok and London, she now lives in Geneva, where she is CEO of Lift Events, an organization that identifies technology trends, their business and social impact through the organization of events and open innovation programs. Issues related to the challenges and opportunities created by new technologies as well as the strategic responses from organizations are at the heart of Lift’s activities.
Abir holds a BA in Political Sciences from the University of Geneva. She is an investor, and member of advisory and innovation boards.

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He started his financial career in 2005 as Head of Quantitative Analysis for a Swiss Family Office, selecting funds and managing portfolio allocation. In 2008, he switched to the alternative world and joined Peak Partners as hedge funds analyst.
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