ABOUT
Swiss Properties Invest
Swiss Properties Invest A/S is a Danish company founded in 2021, and it is the sole owner of Swiss Properties Invest AG, registered in Switzerland.
Swiss Properties Invest AG owns, operates, optimizes and expands a portfolio of commercial properties located in selected regions of Switzerland.
In order to give both private and professional investors residing outside of Switzerland the opportunity to invest in Swiss commercial properties, Swiss Properties Invest A/S successfully completed the only initial public offering (IPO) in Denmark in 2022.
Swiss Properties Invest A/S is listed on Nasdaq First North Growth Market and the shares are traded under the symbol SWISS.
Investment objectives
Swiss Properties Invest is designed to be a long-term passive investment with high return and low risk.
The rare combination of high return on investment and low risk is possible because Swiss Properties Invest is based on these key concepts:
- A simple business model – i.e., commercial properties, leverage, and economies of scale
- Compounding growth – i.e., investing profits in more properties to gain more profits
- Macroeconomic advantages – i.e., benefiting from inflation and safe-haven Switzerland
- Taking care of business – i.e., successful track record and skin in the game
The expected return on investment for Swiss Properties Invest is 100% over 10 years, and 300% over 20 years.
A proven investment case
Dating back to 2006, the people taking care of business in Swiss Properties Invest have acquired more than 60 Swiss commercial properties with a total acquisition volume of more than CHF 500 million.
For the properties with a running time of at least 10 years (median of 13 years), the average return on investment* has been more than 400%.
*The return on investment is calculated for each property as the sum of the value appreciation, the accumulated profits paid out to investors, and the currency gain for Danish and EU investors.
Read more about our key concepts here.
PROPERTIES
Property 1
Nänikon
Grabenstrasse 8, 8606 Nänikon
Property 2
Wängi
Murgstrasse 21, 9545 Wängi
Property 3
Sempach-Station
Industriestrasse 17, 6203 Sempach-Station
Property 4
Sempach-Station
Industriestrasse 17a, 6203 Sempach-Station
Property 5
Dierikon
Pilatusstrasse 2, 6036 Dierikon
Property 6
Weinfelden
Weststrasse 15, 8570 Weinfelden
Property 7
Schwerzenbach
Ringstrasse 1, 8603 Schwerzenbach
Property 8
Liestal
Burgstrasse 2, 4410 Liestal
Property 9
Koblenz
Tüftelstrasse 50, 5322 Koblenz
Frequently Asked Questions
Because it is an investment with great potential!
Swiss Properties Invest is designed to be a long-term passive investment with high return and low risk.
The rare combination of high return on investment and low risk is possible because Swiss Properties Invest is based on these key concepts:
- A simple business model – i.e., commercial properties, leverage, and economies of scale
- Compounding growth – i.e., investing profits in more properties to gain more profits
- Macroeconomic advantages – i.e., benefiting from inflation and safe-haven Switzerland
- Taking care of business – i.e., successful track record and skin in the game
The expected return on investment for Swiss Properties Invest is 100% over 10 years, and 300% over 20 years.
But before you decide to invest in Swiss Properties Invest, please read the question below regarding the risks involved and make certain to also consult the section about risks in the IPS prospectus.
IPO prospectusAny investment nowadays needs to consider how it can protect itself from the effects of inflation.
Inflation is the increase in the quantity of money and credit.
One of the main effects of inflation is an increase in the prices of goods and services – simply due to ever-increasing amounts of money chasing goods and services which often do not increase at the same rate.
The more money and credit around, the less the purchasing power of each monetary unit is – i.e., the value of each unit of money declines.
The name of the game when investing in times of inflation is to place your money in those goods (i.e., real assets) which will increase faster in value than the money is losing its value (i.e., its power to purchase).
Most real assets will increase in value during inflation and, hence, provide some hedging against inflation.
However, due to the use of leverage in property investments you get to own more real assets with properties and you get an increase in value not only on that part of the assets bought with your money, but also on that part bought with the help of other people’s money (e.g., a mortgage from a bank).
Therefore, you generally get more hedging against inflation with properties than you do with any of the other real assets.
Furthermore, with an investment in properties you get the added advantage that the inflation will not only increase the value of your properties, but it will at the same time depreciate the debt which you have used to purchase the properties!
These considerations are major reasons why we are investing in commercial properties in Swiss Properties Invest. The result is not just a protection or hedging against inflation; we actually end up with an increased return on investment because of it and, hence, we are benefitting from it!
Read more about our key concepts & inflation here.
Well, if you already own commercial properties in Switzerland, then you are already doing perfectly fine and, hence, don’t need Swiss Properties Invest!
However, if your properties are located outside of Switzerland, then you should still consider investing in Swiss Properties Invest in order to gain from the macroeconomic advantages built into this investment.
Swiss Properties Invest focuses only on Swiss commercial properties and the reason for this very strict geo-political focus is that Switzerland has proven to be a unique place to keep and accumulate wealth – even during global crises.
These characteristics have rightly earned Switzerland the predicate “safe haven,” and it is not a coincidence that a high proportion of private wealth in the world is in or associated with Switzerland!
Switzerland is arguably the strongest economy in the world when measured by population size, and the Swiss fiat currency (i.e., CHF) has historically been strong in comparison to other currencies (e.g., DKK, EUR, USD, and GBP).
These macroeconomic advantages are unique to Switzerland and that is the reason why you should still consider investing in Swiss Properties Invest even if you already own commercial properties outside of this wonderful “safe haven”.
Read more about our key concepts and safe haven Switzerland here.
Long-term in Swiss Properties Invest ideally means an investment horizon of at least 10 years.
Actually, for the team behind Swiss Properties Invest, long-term means “for the rest of our lives!”
A great advantage of this type of long-term investment horizon is that an investor does not need to worry about getting the timing of an exit right.
It is simply a better strategy staying invested and letting the effects of compounding work over a long time-period because your return on investment increases exponentially over time.
Exponential growth means that a 7% return on investment compounded leads to almost 100 % return on investment over 10 years, almost 300% over 20 years, and almost 700% over 30 years.
In comparison, a simple linear growth of 7% in return on investment would lead to only 70% over 10 years, 140% over 20 years, and 210% over 30 years.
Read more about our key concepts and compounding growth here.
In order to answer this question, it is important to realize that price and value are not the same.
A price is something objective – i.e., in case of shares in Swiss Properties Invest, it is a historical fact stating the number of DKK per share paid by the buyer to the seller of these shares on a given day and time.
The price for the latest trade is available on Nasdaq First North Growth Market Denmark, and the shares are traded under the symbol SWISS.
Value, on the other hand, is something subjective, and it depends on utility or use as perceived by the individual in relation to personal ends and wants.
Therefore, the value of a Swiss Properties Invest share depends on how much value you as an investor place on what we have designed the investment to be – i.e., how much the purpose of the investment relates to your ends and what you want.
If you want a high return on investment with low risk and you have the time to wait for this long-term passive investment to produce the expected high return on investment, then Swiss Properties Invest is going to be valuable to you.
This still doesn’t answer the question if you should buy Swiss Properties Invest shares at any given price offered at the stock exchange.
However, you can get an indication of the value per share contained in Swiss Properties Invest by using the measure of “book value per share”, which is available at least every half year in the financial reports published by the company.
The book value per share is a fair proxy for value which an investor can use to get a sense of whether an offered price on the stock exchange is a good price or not.
And shares in a good company offered for less than the book value per share is probably not a bad deal!
Swiss Properties Invest is specifically designed to be a long-term passive investment with a high return on investment in combination with very low risk.
Therefore, the investor who is ideally matched to Swiss Properties Invest is someone with a long-term investment horizon – i.e., at least 10 years, and even better, someone who will think “for the rest of my life”.
Assuming that you are such an investor and that you are earning the money needed for your investing on an ongoing basis, then investing in Swiss Properties Invest on an ongoing basis makes the most sense.
Whenever shares are offered on the stock exchange for less than the book value per share and you have the money available for investing, then this is the “buy signal” that you should be looking for and acting on.
This is basically the old method of “dollar cost averaging” where you as a buyer end up with the optimal average share price over time.
If you want to invest bigger amounts (i.e., at least DKK 746.000 equivalent to at least EUR 100.000 per contribution) or you are a qualified investor (i.e., fulfilling certain income, wealth, and investor requirements), then you should participate in the ongoing capital increases in the company in order to get the best average share price.
Read more about our key concept and compounding growth here.
In order to participate in a capital increase in Swiss Properties Invest, you have to invest at least DKK 746.000 (= EUR 100.000) in a single round of capital increase.
An investor participating in a capital increase will receive new shares in Swiss Properties Invest, and these shares will automatically be tradable on Nasdaq First North Growth Market, just like all existing shares (and all under the symbol SWISS).
The major benefit of participating in a capital increase is that the investment contribution actually contributes to the improvement of the investment, because it becomes new working capital for the company which, along with additional bank financing, will be used to purchase more properties.
The more properties we have in the portfolio of Swiss Properties Invest, the more we will benefit from economies of scale, which will lead to more return on investment.
This benefits all investors in Swiss Properties Invest – both those participating in the capital increase and also all those shareholders who don’t.
In contrast to this, any purchase of shares on the stock exchange is simply an exchange of shares for money between a buyer and a seller without any substantial change to the investment.
An investor participating in a capital increase has the individual benefit of being able to buy a significant number of new shares without causing the share price to increase.
The more an investor wishes to invest in Swiss Properties Invest, the more relevant this is – at least at the current point in the life cycle of the investment.
Further down the road, when Swiss Properties Invest has done many capital increases (and maybe even stopped doing these), acquired plenty of additional properties in its portfolio, and clearly demonstrated significant value creation, then we expect that even large numbers of shares may be traded on the stock exchange without moving the share price.
The investment is designed to be long-term, and we have only just begun the interesting life of Swiss Properties Invest with an initial public offering (IPO) in the summer of 2022.
Since long-term in connection with investing in commercial properties means at least 10 years, then we are somewhere in 2032 before we even get to the point where an investor should be considering how to get cash out of Swiss Properties Invest.
At this point in time, we expect that Swiss Properties Invest has done many capital increases, acquired plenty of additional properties in its portfolio, and clearly demonstrated significant value creation.
In other words, Swiss Properties Invest will, at this point in time, be a very attractive investment, and we expect that this attractiveness will be expressed in both the share price and the liquidity of the shares.
Therefore, you can simply sell some of your shares in order to get the cash you want.
Another way to get cash out of your investment in Swiss Properties Invest may also be that the company, at that point in time, has changed its present “no dividend policy” and instead pays out an annual dividend.
One reason for a change of dividend policy could be that the company has more profit than it can invest in additional commercial properties and, hence, it makes perfect economic sense to repay the owners.
The expected return on investment for Swiss Properties Invest is 100% over 10 years, and 300% over 20 years.
Dating back to 2006, the people taking care of business in Swiss Properties Invest have acquired more than 60 Swiss commercial properties with a total acquisition volume of more than CHF 500 million.
For the properties with a running time of at least 10 years (median of 13 years), the average return on investment* has been more than 400%.
Read more about the team and our expected return.
*The return on investment is calculated for each property as the sum of the value appreciation, the accumulated profits paid out to investors, and the currency gain for Danish and EU investors.
Plenty of things can go wrong in a property investment, and each potential problem represents a risk.
Starting with the ”worst case scenario”, then it is of course possible to hypothesize risks where we would lose our properties (e.g. expropriation or war) or our rental income (e.g., major recession or pandemics).
However, the political risk of expropriation or a major recession is, in our view, small. After all, we have chosen to invest in Swiss commercial properties exactly because of the strong private property rights still in place in Switzerland and because of its extremely strong economy.
War on Swiss territory or a true pandemic would indeed be bad luck, but then again, it would be universally bad for almost all investments and not just Swiss Properties Invest. (Not that “all will suffer” is much of a comfort!)
Other risks, like severe damage to a property caused by fire or water, are covered by insurances and, hence, will not really threaten the economy of the investment.
Therefore, we end up with the loss of a significant part of the total rental income as the biggest realistic risk.
For an investor, it is important to keep in mind that loss of rental income is part of the game when you are in the business of renting out commercial space and, hence, it is something that any good property management team is used to dealing efficiently with.
Actually, most of the time when a renter is leaving a property of ours, we manage to find a replacement before the renter has even left the building and there is not much – if any – loss of rental income.
Furthermore, the more properties and, therefore, the more total rental income we have in Swiss Properties Invest, the less likely it is that even a significant loss of rental income in one or two properties will matter much for the whole portfolio – i.e., we have protection by “safety in big numbers”.
With the number of properties we already have in Swiss Properties Invest, it will take quite a lot of lost rental income to really cause a reduction in the expected return on investment – and then it is only for a period of time until the rental income has been reestablished.
Since Swiss Properties Invest is listed in Denmark and the share price is in DKK, and the properties are located in Switzerland and, hence, are in CHF, there is both a risk and a potential with respect to the currency.
If CHF continues in the future to grow stronger in comparison to DKK, EUR and other currencies as has been the case for the last many years, then this will be an additional gain to the return on investment for all investors coming from another currency than CHF.
If, however, CHF should become weaker in comparison to DKK, EUR and other currencies, then this will lead to a lower return on investment for all investors coming from another currency than CHF.
When trying to assess the risk of investing in Swiss Properties Invest, It should be noted that since we started investing in Swiss commercial properties in 2006, we have never lost money on a property.
The worst we have experienced is a lower than expected return on investment for a period of time due to reduced rental income. But over time the rental income gets reestablished, and then the investment performs again.
We have had plenty of water damages to properties, a serious fire in a property, and even an explosion in part of a building, but these sort of property risks have never cost us any money, thanks to good insurances. (The Swiss are world champions in insurance coverage!)
In the final risk analysis, an investor in Swiss Properties Invest or any other investment has to be fully aware that investing is about results in the future and it is a fact of life that we humans can only know a few things about the future with certainty – and the outcome of an investment is not one of them!
Hence, investing is an inherently risky activity and past performance is not a guarantee for future results!
Nonetheless, we do believe that we have done everything we can to stack the odds of success in our favour by basing Swiss Properties Invest on a simple (and proven) business model, compounding growth, taking advantage of macroeconomics (benefitting from inflation and safe haven Switzerland) and using an experienced team with skin in the game to take care of business!
All investments share a common predicament; the outcome of the investment is sometime in the future – and the future is inherently unknowable and uncertain.
So the challenge is: How do you, in the present time, judge the potential future outcome of Swiss Properties Invest?
One way to reach a qualified judgement is to look at 1) the people behind Swiss Properties Invest, 2) the business model underlying Swiss Properties Invest, and 3) the macroeconomic trends surrounding Swiss Properties Invest:
1) The people behind an investment should of course be honest, competent, and hardworking.
Traits like these – and for sure the opposite ones! – will tend to leave a distinctive track record over time, which is usually not that difficult to get verified with just a little research on Google or social media (e.g., outcome of other businesses and quality of partners, associates, and networks).
Also, it should be a given that the people behind Swiss Properties Invest are themselves significant investors in the investment – i.e., have skin in the game. If they are not investors, then why on earth should you be?!
2) The business model underlying Swiss Properties Invest should be easily understandable, and it is naturally a great advantage that the model has already been proven successful!
3) The macroeconomic trends surrounding Swiss Properties Invest include inflation and the economic strength of Switzerland, where the investment is taking place.
Any investment nowadays needs an explicit strategy to deal with the macroeconomic force of inflation, and this is very much part of Swiss Properties Invest where we try not only to hedge against inflation, but actively to benefit from it.
Being part of arguably the strongest economy in the world when measured by population size (e.g., domestic market capitalization, interest rate, and strength of currency) and the world’s financial safe haven (e.g., strong protection of and high respect for property rights) is an important macroeconomic advantage offered by Swiss Properties Invest.
If Swiss Properties Invest is judged to be run by sound people with skin in the game, the underlying business model has already been proven successful, and the macroeconomics of the investment are offering advantages, then you, as an investor, have at least stacked the odds for a successful outcome on your side.
And that is actually the best you can do as an investor!
The investment projects with commercial properties which the team behind Swiss Properties Invest have done since 2006 were all designed to pay out profit to the investors.
These investments were, in other words, designed to be “cash cows” for the investors to “milk” on a yearly basis.
Pay out of profit is an attractive investment strategy, but it comes with an important opportunity cost because profit paid out can, of course, not also be used for investing in more properties which would have improved the overall return of investment due to compounding!
Swiss Properties Invest is designed to be a long-term passive investment with high return and low risk.
Compounding is built-in as a significant part of the overall investment strategy in Swiss Properties Invest.
In other words, Swiss Properties Invest is an improvement in comparison to our previous property investments which are already very high performers with more than 400% in average return on investment for properties with a running time of at least 10 years and a median of 13 years.
Read more about our key concepts and compounding growth here.
Investor relations
team
Board
Thorbjörn Graarud
Chairman of the Board since 2021
Thorbjørn is a highly experienced executive with substantial experience within facility management from positions as CEO in listed companies such as Synnøve Finden AS and Neas AS, and part of corporate management in ISS A/S. Thorbjørn holds a master’s degree in Business and Administration from BI, Oslo, Norway.
Shares: 42,500 via LTG Norway AS
Status: Independent
Kirsten Sillehoved
Member of the Board since 2021 and CEO of Swiss Properties Invest A/S since 2022
Kirsten has extensive business experience from running her own Chiropractic clinic for 40 years and from serving as chairman and board member in several professional associations and advisory boards. Kirsten is Doctor of Chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic, Iowa, US and Diploma in IT from Cphbusiness, Denmark.
Shares: 82,647 via Kiropraktor Sillehoved Holding ApS.
Status: Not independent
Christian Seidelin
Vice Chairman of the Board since 2021
Christian has more than twenty years of experience within international treasury and insurance from senior positions at Navision and Nycomed Group. Christian holds a bachelor’s degree in International Management and Economics from Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Shares: 50,641
Status: Not independent
Senior management
Keld Ostergaard
CEO of Swiss Properties Invest AG since 2021
Keld is an experienced investor in the Swiss real estate market since 2006 and is a Co-founder of Swiss Property Ventures AG. Keld is Medical Doctor and Doctor of Philosophy from University of Copenhagen, Denmark and Doctor of Chiropractic from Anglo European College of Chiropractic, United Kingdom
Shares: 347,705 via Swiss Property Ventures AG
Kirsten Sillehoved
CEO of Swiss Properties Invest A/S since 2022
Kirsten has extensive business experience from running her own Chiropractic clinic for 40 years and from serving as chairman and board member in several professional associations and advisory boards.
Kirsten is Doctor of Chiropractic from Palmer College of Chiropractic, Iowa, US and Diploma in IT from Cphbusiness, Denmark.
Shares: 82,647 via Kiropraktor Sillehoved Holding ApS.
Martin A. Märki
CFO of Swiss Properties Invest A/S since 2022 and CFO of Swiss Properties Invest AG since 2021
Martin has significant experience within finance and investing from previous positions at Credit Suisse Fides Trust, Experta-BIL, Dexia Privatbank and being founder and partner of the accounting company Avanta AG. Martin also Co-founded Swiss Property Ventures AG in 2006. Martin graduated from Business School of Commerce, Zürich, Switzerland and is Certified Fiduciary with a Federal Diploma in Higher Education
Shares: 347,705 via Swiss Property Ventures AG
Daily operative team
Gentian Perkola
Head Property Management
of Swiss Properties Invest AG, Zug, Switzerland
Shares: 18,485 via Paladin Ventures AG
Romana Lischer
Head Legal
of Swiss Properties Invest AG, Zug, Switzerland
Shares: 362
Alexander Ostergaard
Head Rental Management
of Swiss Properties Invest AG, Zug, Switzerland
Shares: 18,485 via Paladin Ventures AG