Description
Bernard Sabrier is Vice Chairman of Sagard, Chairman of Sagard MENA and Sagard Private Equity Solutions
(“SPES”), a leading mid-market private equity platform that is part of the Sagard Group, as well as
Chairman of Unigestion Holding One and U Wealth. Mr Sabrier took control of his father's boutique
investment firm, Unigestion, at age 23 in 1976. Over five decades, he has built one of Europe's leading
independent alternative asset managers, defined by contrarian conviction, structural innovation, and a
rare integration of investment leadership with philanthropy.
Mr Sabrier began his career in finance in 1972 at Paribas Geneva, followed by Renault Finance in fixed
income and FX. In the mid-1980s, he pioneered European hedge fund investing, always committing his
own capital first. In 1988, he began investing in private equity on a proprietary basis, initially through
direct investments and subsequently through fund commitments. A landmark transaction came between
1988 and 1992 when he acquired a controlling stake in Banca della Svizzera Italiana and exited to Swiss
Bank Corporation. In 1997, he established one of Europe's first private equity fund-of-funds vehicles. In
2025, Unigestion announced the merger of its private equity platform with Sagard, creating a global midmarket private equity leader; Mr Sabrier is Chairman of the combined entity and Vice Chairman of Sagard's
Board.
Mr Sabrier is President of the Famsa Foundation, a Swiss charitable foundation he established in 2011 as
Unigestion's controlling shareholder, which is now a significant Sagard shareholder. He is also President
of Children Action, a foundation he established in 1994 for disadvantaged children globally. He is the Cofounder of MAMCO — the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Geneva — the largest
contemporary art museum in Switzerland
