In the presence of more than a hundred experts and friends from the Luxembourg and international wealth and asset management industry as well as the insurance, banking and public sectors, European Capital Partners (ECP), Colombo Wealth Management and Twenty First Capital officially announced their strategic cooperation during an event held at the cultural centre "Schéiss“ on Tuesday, January 16th 2018.

Léon Kirch, Partner and CIO of ECP, and his partners Dr. Sibylle Peter, Board Director of Colombo Wealth Management, and Stanislas Bernard, CEO of Twenty First Capital, presented this new venture as well as some key insights of their respective expertise in wealth management. The three partners combined have approximately 4.5 billion euros of assets under management (as of December 31st 2017).

During the evening, Léon Kirch indicated: “Luxembourg was the natural choice for this new wealth management venture because of its central location in Europe, its multicultural background enabling EC21 to service clients across the EU, the quality of its service providers and, last but not least, its solid and pro-business legal and regulatory framework. I believe EC21 is the ideal structure to start offering wealth management services while maintaining the identities and independence of each of the three individual asset management boutiques.”

The reason for the collaboration is twofold:
First, EC21, currently filing for the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) authorisation, will offer a solution to independent wealth managers, whether they are:

• Independent European and Swiss wealth managers looking for a platform to focus on their core expertise, wealth management and Family Offices services, in Luxembourg with the Free Provision of Services (Libre Prestation de Services, LPS),
• Private bankers who wish to serve their long-term clientele more independently and collaborate with several custodian banks in Luxembourg and abroad.

Lennart Duschinger, COO of EC21, explained: “In an increasingly regulated world, where administrative and compliance tasks as well as risk management become ever more complicated and particularly time-consuming, we believe there is a need and a demand from independent wealth managers to delegate these tasks to specialists. Which is why our slogan at EC21 is: Focus on what matters.”

He continued by adding: “EC21’s goal is to build a long-term partnership with wealth managers, enabling them to refocus their full attention on the creation, management and protection of their clients’ wealth, instead of spending excessive time on administrative, compliance and risk management tasks.”

The second reason for the collaboration, demonstrating EC21’s key strength and competitive advantage, is that this new venture has access to the complementary expertise of each partner, from Luxembourg, France and Switzerland, covering the whole spectrum of listed and non-listed investment opportunities; ranging from expertise in asset management to private equity and real estate investments. The investment expertise and products can be used cross-nationally via EC21 to provide state-of-the-art support for demanding clients.