Swiss bank’s 206-year history provides unique perspective as clients navigate €87 trillion European wealth transfer
Mirabaud’s seven generations of family ownership provide more than marketing credibility—they offer practical experience with succession challenges that many clients now confront. The Swiss banking group has navigated transitions, governance evolution and inter-generational disputes across two centuries, accumulating knowledge that proves relevant as European families prepare to transfer nearly €87 trillion by 2040.
Four managing partners currently lead operations: Camille Vial, Yves Mirabaud, Nicolas Mirabaud and Lionel Aeschlimann. Their ownership engagement differs fundamentally from hired executives managing shareholder capital—these partners risk personal wealth on business decisions while maintaining active involvement in daily operations, strategy and management.
“As a seventh-generation family-owned group, Mirabaud brings first-hand succession experience to clients navigating the transfer of their company or wealth,” according to firm materials. The claim resonates more authentically than consultants advising on experiences they’ve studied but never personally confronted.
Family business succession fails more often than it succeeds. Research consistently shows that most family enterprises don’t survive to third-generation ownership, succumbing to poor planning, family conflict, inadequate preparation of successors or inability to adapt business models across changing economic conditions.
Mirabaud has beaten these odds through institutional mechanisms balancing family control with professional management. Equity partners hold management roles and investment stakes without belonging to the founding family—a structure enabling talent retention while preserving family governance authority.
The model addresses a common succession challenge: how to attract and retain capable executives when family members control ownership and ultimate decision-making authority. Equity participation provides financial alignment and status differentiation from employees receiving only salary compensation.
The bank supports clients through major transitions including company sales and diversification into new asset classes. These advisory relationships draw on Mirabaud’s own experience structuring governance, managing family dynamics and ensuring continuity across generational transitions.
European families face particularly complex succession considerations given varied tax regimes, forced heirship rules and cross-border ownership structures. Effective planning requires coordinating legal, tax and financial advisors across multiple jurisdictions while managing family expectations and communication.
According to EY’s 2025 Global Wealth Research Report, approximately €677 billion will transfer annually across Europe through 2040. This wave creates opportunities for wealth managers capable of advising families through transitions while capturing assets for ongoing management.
Many entrepreneurs struggle with retirement planning not from financial inadequacy but from identity loss and uncertainty about purpose beyond business ownership. Transitioning from active executive to passive investor requires psychological adjustment that financial advisors often underestimate or overlook.
Mirabaud’s managing partners understand these dynamics firsthand. Succession within family firms requires current leaders to relinquish authority, accept reduced involvement and trust successors to preserve legacies—emotionally difficult even when financially rational.
Family governance becomes critical as ownership disperses across siblings, cousins and eventually extended family members with varying levels of business involvement, financial needs and risk tolerance. Formal structures including family councils, shareholder agreements and buy-sell arrangements prevent conflicts that destroy value and relationships.
The bank’s partnership structure evolved over time rather than emerging fully formed in 1819. This evolution mirrors how successful family businesses adapt governance as they grow, professionalize and transition across generations—illustrating that flexibility matters more than rigid adherence to original structures.
Clients seeking succession advice often want certainty and definitive answers. However, effective planning acknowledges uncertainty while building flexibility to accommodate changed circumstances. Rigid plans designed for specific scenarios often fail when reality diverges from assumptions.
Mirabaud combines succession advisory with practical wealth management including trust administration, estate planning and tax optimization. This integration matters because succession planning divorced from implementation often produces elegant structures that fail during execution due to overlooked practical considerations.
The firm’s longevity also demonstrates the importance of business model adaptation across economic cycles, technological disruption and regulatory transformation. Wealth managers founded during Napoleon’s era have survived world wars, depressions, currency crises and countless market crashes by adapting services, geographies and client segments.
Family businesses often resist necessary adaptation due to emotional attachment to founding vision, successful historical approaches or conflict-avoidance among family members reluctant to challenge traditions. Successful succession requires acknowledging when preservation demands transformation.
Next-generation asset owners represent a key client segment for Mirabaud and competing wealth managers. These individuals inherit wealth without having accumulated it through entrepreneurship or career earnings—creating different psychological relationships with money and distinct service expectations.
Many inheritors seek impact investing opportunities, values alignment and active portfolio engagement beyond traditional return maximization. Wealth managers serving this demographic must adapt beyond conventional investment management to address broader purpose and meaning considerations.
Mirabaud’s multicultural, multigenerational teams reflect recognition that client diversity requires advisor diversity. Effective succession advisory demands understanding varied cultural approaches to family, wealth and inter-generational obligations—understanding that comes from lived experience rather than academic study.
The bank maintains commitment to employee development through training programs, cultural events and professional advancement opportunities. This investment serves dual purposes: enhancing service delivery capability while building organizational culture that retains talent across career cycles.
Succession planning also encompasses operational continuity when key client relationship managers retire or depart. Mirabaud must navigate its own version of challenges facing clients—transferring relationship knowledge, maintaining trust and ensuring service consistency through personnel transitions.
Whether Mirabaud’s succession experience translates into advisory competitive advantage depends on effective communication and client perception. Many banks claim family-business understanding; differentiating authentic experience from marketing claims requires demonstrating specific insights and approaches that reflect genuine expertise.
The €87 trillion European wealth transfer will occur over decades, not years. Wealth managers positioning for this opportunity must maintain consistent advisory quality, relationship continuity and organizational stability across extended timeframes—precisely the capabilities that multi-generational institutions like Mirabaud have developed through necessity.
For clients navigating succession, selecting advisors with relevant experience matters more than choosing institutions with largest asset bases or highest brand recognition. Family businesses often prefer working with family-owned wealth managers sharing similar values, governance challenges and long-term perspectives.
Mirabaud’s seventh generation suggests the bank has mastered succession fundamentals that many families struggle to achieve across three generations. This track record provides credibility when advising clients that successful transitions require planning, communication, flexibility and willingness to adapt traditions while preserving core values.