Berger, van Berchem & Cie (BVB)

BVB operates as a private unlimited-liability partnership, a structure that binds the managing partners' personal assets to the firm's obligations. This form is rare among Swiss private banks, most of which have been converted into limited-liability corporate entities or absorbed by universal-bank parents. The partnership model was deliberately preserved to align risk-taking with client interests and to avoid external shareholder pressure on capital allocation.

Investment authority sits with the managing partners, whose names the firm discloses only to clients and Swiss regulatory filings rather than on a public website. The partnership structure means the senior investment decision-makers are the same individuals who bear unlimited personal liability for the firm's obligations, collapsing the typical separation between portfolio management and enterprise risk.

BVB executes direct private-equity co-investments through a network cultivated over decades with European industrial families and other independent private banks. The firm typically avoids blind-pool fund commitments, preferring to diligence individual transactions alongside known operators. This relationship-based sourcing means deal flow often bypasses broad auction processes, though it also constrains the volume of opportunities screened.

The firm manages discretionary global equity and fixed-income portfolios for core wealth preservation, supplemented by direct private-equity co-investments and select real-asset exposure. The equity book is concentrated and long-biased, while private investments center on European mid-market buyouts and growth-stage industrial companies. BVB does not run hedge-fund allocator programs, venture-capital sleeves, or structured-product desks.

No. Berger, van Berchem & Cie has consistently declined to publish AUM figures, a deliberate stance tied to its partnership structure and client base of private European families. The firm does not appear in industry rankings, does not issue press releases on asset growth, and does not maintain the data-vendor profiles that allocators typically consult — making it effectively invisible to quantitative-manager screens.

The unlimited-liability partnership structure is the defining difference: partners risk personal bankruptcy if the firm fails, which fundamentally changes underwriting, leverage, and the incentive to gather assets for fee income. In contrast, most Swiss private banks today are subsidiaries of publicly traded groups and optimize for recurring fee pools. BVB's model is closer to an internal family office extended to a handful of external families than to a commercial wealth manager.

BVB participates in direct co-investments alongside other European family offices and private banks, typically on a deal-by-deal basis rather than through structured co-investment vehicles. The firm's preference is to work with counterparties it has known across multiple cycles, and it generally avoids transactions where it lacks a direct line to the general partner's investment committee.