Frankfurt, December 27, 2021: Ralf Lochmüller, CEO and founding partner of Lupus alpha, turns 60 on 28 December. Born in Duisburg, he has been living and working in Frankfurt for 34 years, spending most of his professional career in asset management. After 12 years as global partner and managing director at the US/UK investment managers Invesco, in 2000 Lochmüller together with four partners founded Lupus alpha as an independent asset management firm. As entrepreneur, he was therefore instrumental in establishing one of Germany's leading boutique investment firms. Through his work with a series of charity projects and his cultural commitment as member of the Städel Museum board, Lochmüller has close ties with the Frankfurt metropolitan region he has made his home.
20 years ago asset management was in turmoil, breaking traditional asset creation chains and offering opportunities to market newcomers. 'There were new market listings almost every day. It was a hugely contagious dynamic. We wanted to set up our own firm too, to do things better and with more focus than bank asset managers', said Ralf Lochmüller describing the start of Lupus alpha. 'When you're starting something new, everything's possible, you can't be just another interchangeable provider so far as the client is concerned. As entrepreneurs, three things were important to us: firstly, our independence; secondly, our owner-run, partnership structure; and thirdly our focus on a few, specialist investment classes. This is still our bedrock because it gives us the flexibility we need to direct our firm entirely towards our investors' needs for performance and first-class service', added Lochmüller talking about his entrepreneurial philosophy.
Today Lupus alpha has 90 employees and manages around €15 bn for institutional and wholesale investors - almost five times the figure it was managing five years ago. Despite the dynamic growth, Lochmüller still believes it is essential that 'over all these years Lupus alpha has retained its entrepreneurial spirit.' He and his partners maintain that it is important to create an entrepreneurial culture of independent trading, ambitious objectives and great freedom within their teams. 'Active entrepreneurship needs the right people who are prepared to think outside the box for our clients and who are passionate about what they do. It's people who make the difference,' sums up Lochmüller.
For Ralf Lochmüller, fostering young talent goes beyond the business environment. He is a long-term supporter of equal opportunities in education and, for example, has many years' personal involvement with a Hertie Foundation migration project and with the Little House of Hope Foundation, which runs a school in Namibia.
Lochmüller has found a business and personal home in Frankfurt. 'Frankfurt is an extremely open and liberal city that appreciates civic involvement. It is important to me to be able to give something back to this place - it's something that as entrepreneur and newcomer I have always felt', said Lochmüller, who is married with five children. With Lupus alpha he therefore supports inter-regional institutions, such as, since 2014, the winter food programmes of Frankfurt's Evangelical Hoffnungsgemeinde, and for 15 years he has been involved in Frankfurter Kinderbüro's annual Christmas action project. Lochmüller has been a member of the Städelkomitee 21. Jahrhundert for over a decade and has been part of the creation and development of the museum's contemporary art collection. In the next few years he plans to set up his own foundation.
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