Aquila Associates Investments 

Your independent asset manager based in Basel, Switzerland

We provide independent discretionary wealth management and investment advisory services for individuals, families, trusts and corporations. We do not have any proprietary investment products or third party business interests. Our goals are closely aligned with those of our clients.

Aquila Associates Investments Ltd. has a license from FINMA (Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority) to operate as a portfolio manager and is directly regulated and supervised by FINMA.

Meet the Team

The partners

Over 60 years combined experience in wealth management and financial markets

James Leslie, CFA

James began his career as an equity and convertible bond salesman in 1998 at Société Générale (1998 – 2000) in Zürich. Over the following thirteen years James worked as an executive director in equity sales at Deutsche Bank (2000–2006), Goldman Sachs International (2006-2009) and CITI Global Markets (2009-2011) covering all the major institutional asset managers, private banks, pension funds and hedge funds based in Switzerland. James joined Mirabaud & Cie in 2011 as a first vice president in the asset management division responsible for managing discretionary private client portfolios. In 2013 James moved, together with Michael Moore, to Aquila Associates Ltd., an independent asset manager, to continue managing their existing clients’ assets. In October 2018, James founded Aquila Associates Investments Ltd. and, together with Michael Moore, moved their clients to the new independent asset management firm on the Aquila platform. James received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and German from Trinity College, Dublin and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Michael Moore

Michael began his career in stock broking in 1968 with Laurence Keen & Gardner in London latterly specializing in private client asset management. He moved onto discretionary wealth management at Morgan Grenfell in 1974 before heading off to Saudi Arabia in 1980 to manage the National Commercial Bank’s investment department. The latter involved establishing and managing fixed interest retail funds as well as advising some of the bank’s owners and clients on investment matters. In 1987, Michael came to Switzerland as general manager of Guinness Mahon’s Swiss subsidiary in Zurich but in 1998 returned to pure asset management with Aegis, a Robert Fleming subsidiary. A year later, Robert Fleming was taken over by JP Morgan Chase and, in turn, Aegis was sold to Mirabaud & Cie, a Geneva based private bank. In 2013, Michael moved with his colleague, James Leslie, from Mirabaud & Cie to continue managing their existing clients’ assets at Aquila Associates Ltd and then in October, 2018 also moved to Aquila Associates Investments Ltd.

Aquila Ltd.

Aquila Ltd. is a minority shareholder in Aquila Associates Investments Ltd. The firm is based in Zürich and serves as a platform for independent Swiss wealth managers with CHF 12bln in assets under management among all partner companies. The platform provides all partner firms with core services comprising legal and compliance, audit, accounting and operations.

Aquila Ltd. is a bank and securities house (formerly securities broker) is regulated and supervised by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).