Latest / The Pivot Podcast with Fexingo: How Businesses Change Direction and Survive Disruption / How a Family Office Pivoted From Wealth to Climate Investing
Transcript
- Lucas: So there's a family office in Switzerland that spent a hundred and fifty years managing a mining and fossil fuel fortune. And about five years ago, they decided to do something most people thought was impossible. They turned the whole thing into a climate investing vehicle. Luna: You mean they just flipped the switch from coal to solar panels? Lucas: Not quite. The Wyss family office — named after the industrialist who built his wealth in mining and later oil — spent years in what they now call the messy middle. They didn't divest overnight. They had to convince trustees, manage a portfolio that was deeply intertwined with the fossil fuel economy, and figure out what 'climate positive' even means when you're sitting on assets you can't just sell. Luna: Right. Because a lot of these assets are illiquid. You can't just dump a stake in a pipeline like you'd sell a stock. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the part most people miss. The narrative we hear is 'divest and reinvest.' But for a family office that's been in the same sectors for generations, the harder work is unwinding partnerships, negotiating buyouts, and sometimes holding onto assets longer than you'd like. Lucas: So what they did was set a hard deadline. By two thousand twenty-five, they said, every direct holding in fossil fuels and mining would be gone. And they structured the transition so that new investments went into climate solutions from day one, even while the old ones were still winding down. Luna: That's a smart way to keep momentum. You're not waiting for the exit to start the new chapter. Lucas: Right. And they started small. Their first climate investments were in early-stage battery storage companies and a couple of regenerative agriculture funds. Nothing flashy. But the point was to learn the terrain, build relationships, and show the trustees that this wasn't just a moral stance. Lucas: I keep coming back to that because it's the part that's hardest to replicate. You can't just hire a few ESG analysts and call it a day. The Wyss office brought in a chief sustainability officer who reported directly to the family, and gave her veto power over any deal that didn't align with the new mandate. Luna: Veto power. That's not a ceremonial role. Lucas: Not at all. And it sent a signal through the whole organization. Every deal team knew that if a potential investment didn't pass the climate lens, it was dead. That forced them to get creative, to find opportunities they wouldn't have considered before. Luna: Quick honest thing — a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making this many of these. Lucas: Yeah, it's a quiet thing, but it matters. If these conversations have nudged your thinking in some small way, that's the best signal we get. Luna: So where did they end up? Did they hit the two thousand twenty-five target? Lucas: They did, mostly. By the end of last year, they'd cut their direct fossil fuel exposure to essentially zero, and they'd moved about forty percent of the total portfolio into what they call 'climate solutions.' The rest is in transition assets and cash, waiting for the right opportunities. Luna: Forty percent is a big number. What's the rest of the story? Lucas: The harder part has been the indirect exposure. They still had stakes in funds that held fossil fuel companies, and unwinding those takes longer. They've committed to being fully fossil-free by twenty twenty-eight, but they've learned that you can't control everything. Lucas: The bigger lesson might be about identity. For generations, this family's wealth was tied to extraction. Now they're positioning themselves as 'stewards of the transition.' That's a fundamental shift in how they see themselves, and it took a lot of honest conversations around the family dinner table. Luna: I imagine there was some resistance. Not everyone wants to hear that grandpa's coal mine is the problem. Lucas: That's exactly what happened. The younger generation pushed for the pivot, but some of the older trustees were skeptical. They worried about returns, about reputation, about whether this was just a fad. The family office had to bring in external advisors to run the numbers and show that climate investing wasn't going to sacrifice performance. Lucas: And the data actually helped. They built a model that compared their old portfolio's projected returns against the new one, accounting for carbon risk and regulation. The new portfolio came out ahead in most scenarios. That was the turning point. Luna: So it wasn't just an ethical argument. It was an investment thesis. Lucas: Exactly. They realized that in a world where governments are tightening emissions rules, a portfolio heavy in fossil fuels is a liability. The pivot wasn't just noble. It was financially prudent. And that's what convinced the holdouts. Lucas: Now they're doing something even bolder. They've started backing carbon removal startups and even a small pilot for regenerative ocean farming. They're not just avoiding harm. They're trying to actively repair some of the damage their family's industries contributed to. Luna: That's a heavy lift. It's one thing to say you're going to fund kelp farms, but getting that to scale is another story. Lucas: Right, and they know that. They've structured these investments as long-term, patient capital. They're not expecting a quick exit. That's the advantage of a family office. You can think in decades, not quarters. Lucas: So what's the takeaway for other family offices? I think it's that you don't have to choose between your values and your returns. But you do have to be honest about the transition period. It's messy, it's slow, and you have to be willing to hold two truths at once: that you're still part of the problem, even as you're working toward the solution. Luna: That's a good place to leave it. Thanks for walking us through that, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks for listening. If you want to dig into the Wyss family office's public reports, they're actually quite transparent about their progress. It's a rare look inside how a legacy institution changes course.