Securitisation vs AMCs

The key difference is in the name: "Actively Managed". AMCs have a history in Swiss banks, with banks issuing certificates which describe a particular strategy, and bank traders trading according to that strategy. More recently, non-bank entities have issued smaller-scale AMCs which are not frequently traded and even barely adjusted at all throughout the life of the investment, acting like tracker instruments. Nevertheless, their managers generally have very wide scope of discretion, if they choose to use it, so probably they would be graded higher risk than "passively managed" Securitisations.

A corollary of them being "Actively Managed" is that AMCs must appoint an investment portfolio manager which is licensed by the Swiss financial regulator (FINMA). Securitisations generally do not need to be regulated, or to be managed by a regulated manager. On the other hand, Securitisations must be audited each year by an independent auditor, whereas AMCs do not have to be audited. AMCs are generally more costly to operate than Securitisations, and this may be due to FINMA-regulated manager fees being generally higher than external auditor fees (noting also that maintaining a FINMA license is costly).

Swiss AMCs, in particular smaller-scale Swiss AMCs designed for non-Swiss investors, generally have their issuer corporate entities in Guernsey or Jersey while still being governed by Swiss law and having a Swiss-regulated manager. Securitisations have their issuing corporate entities in Luxembourg. This can result in differences in taxation, in particular whether the managers of underlying assets in certain countries have to withhold tax on payments they make to the issuing corporate entity; this is because Guernsey or Jersey's bilateral tax treaties with those countries may contain different terms to Luxembourg's, and means not all underlying assets are suited to both structures – for example UK real estate lending is better suited to Securitisation. Also, it can be a relative advantage for Securitisations that some underlying asset managers perceive doing business with entities in offshore tax havens like Guernsey and Jersey to be more risky.