International advisory firm Blacktower Financial Management has unveiled a Swiss entity, Blacktower FM (Switzerland), as part of its global expansion programme.
This comes after Gavin Pluck, the recently appointed group managing director at the firm, told International Adviser in July 2021 that Blacktower was going to expand to Switzerland and Australia followed by the UAE and Canada as well.
The Swiss licence will allow the business to operate with a discretionary management mandate – with direct authorisation from Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) – as well as act as a distributor.
The global advice firm also secured access to the Australian market with authorisation from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic).
Blacktower’s offerings will be available to both local residents and expats, it said.
Growth
Pluck said: “We identified a market in Switzerland for the business, on the back of enquiries from both potential network members and clients.
“Rather than having our IFAs passport in, we felt a commercial need to set up a bricks and mortar presence so that our growing team of advisers in Switzerland have a robust operations centre to bolster their business development opportunities.”
Group chairman John Westwood added: “We are very much committed to developing an operational office and infrastructure on the ground, and not only is this expansion tremendous progress for Blacktower, but also further increases the reach and offering of our Nexus Global IFA network, which is also evolving at a rapid pace.”
