A spirited blend of pitch show, industry gathering, and showcase for new ideas: on Thursday, AssetRush once again brought together the most dynamic minds in the international structured products scene at the Kaufleuten Club in Zurich.

The event, conceived by GenTwo founders Patrick Loepfe and Philippe A. Naegeli and run as an independent initiative within the company, has become a fixed reference point for everyone actively expanding the universe of investable assets.

Uncompromising Format, Maximum Energy

The format was as radical as ever: five-minute and one-minute slots, a timer — with IWC Schaffhausen serving as official timekeeper — and a music cut-off for anyone who ran over. No room for filler, but plenty of room for energy.

Host Damian Horner held together nearly five hours of programming with a steady hand, navigating some bold thematic leaps along the way.

The Award Winners

A highlight of the evening was once again the presentation of the second AssetAwards, an initiative launched last year by finews and AssetRush. The awards recognize concrete innovations in the growing universe of investable assets.

Candidates in the three categories — Alternatives, Digital Assets, and Traditional Assets — were identified based on the most-read articles on finews over the past 12 months. Readers then decided the winners through an online vote.

• Alternatives: Nikolas von Haugwitz, CEO of Moevenpick Wein, was recognized for the acquisition of Liquidgrape (German only). Wine ranks among the world's most valuable collectibles, yet as an investment it has long been difficult to access — too opaque, too fragmented, too lacking in standardization. With Liquidgrape, Moevenpick Wein is bringing investment expertise in-house, positioning fine wine as a structured asset class alongside art and watches, with low correlation to equities and bonds. The award was accepted by Annie Doerfelt and Henrik Maass of Liquidgrape.
• Digital Assets: Thomas Graf of Twint was recognized for the strategic opening of Switzerland's most widely used payment app. With the planned integration of stablecoins, tokenized deposits, and the E-ID (German only), the app is positioned to become the bridge between the daily lives of millions of Swiss users and the emerging digital asset ecosystem. Whoever controls the payment layer controls access to new forms of value.
• Traditional Assets: Hans-Peter Portner, head of Thematic Equities at Pictet Asset Management, was recognized for building the world's leading platform in thematic investing. Rather than investing in sectors or countries, the approach targets megatrends: water scarcity, digitization, demographics, and the energy transition. Pictet AM has pursued this strategy consistently for decades, growing it into 15 strategies with some 68 billion dollars in assets under management. With Portner unable to attend, the award was accepted on his behalf by communications chief Simon Roth.

Three awards, three categories — left to right: Annie Doerfelt and Henrik Maass of Liquidgrape, Simon Roth of Pictet, Florian Schwab of finews, Thomas Graf of Twint. (Image: superlobby ltd for AssetRush)

Two Structured Products Veterans

Amid the event's customary fast pace, the evening found a quieter, weightier moment. Georg von Wattenwyl, a long-standing Vontobel structured products veteran and president of the Swiss Structured Products Association (SSPA), invited GenTwo founder Loepfe to join him on stage for a shared recollection.

The two men — both central architects of the Swiss structured products landscape — looked back together on the early years of the industry.

A Book for the Movement

Fresh off the press and making an immediate impression: «Assetization: Inside the Trillion-Dollar Investing Revolution», published by Wiley and written by Loepfe, Naegeli, and communications chief Tom Lyons.

The central argument: two barriers that have constrained access to capital markets for generations are falling simultaneously. The first: investing was long confined to listed securities — a narrow slice of the broader economy. The second: a small number of large institutions controlled what could reach the market as a financial product. Both are changing.

The assetizable universe, the authors contend, encompasses an estimated 255 trillion dollars in value that currently remains out of reach.