MoneyPark settles CEO succession

Media release
Basel, 2 March 2022

MoneyPark, the leading independent specialist for mortgages and real estate in Switzerland, is reorganising its operational and strategic management as of May 2022. Stefan Heitmann, founder and CEO, will hand over to the current Chairman of the Board of Directors, Martin Tschopp. Heitmann remains a shareholder and he will contribute his experience going forward as a director with an executive role at MoneyPark.

Martin Tschopp will assume the operational management of the company as CEO from 1 May 2022. He will succeed Stefan Heitmann, who founded the fintech company in 2012 and developed it into Switzerland's leading independent mortgage and real estate specialist. With over 300 employees and an annual brokered mortgage volume of more than CHF 3 billion, MoneyPark is now the clear market leader and is considered to be the founder of professional technology- and platform-based mortgage banking. By expanding its service range to provide real estate services to the next generation, MoneyPark gives its clients comprehensive support in finding, financing and selling properties.

"I am very pleased to be able to lead MoneyPark into its next development phase with the current management team. The company is in an excellent position and now is the time to build on our position as number one", stresses Martin Tschopp. He has been Chairman of the MoneyPark Board of Directors since 2019 and has extensive financial sector experience within and outside Switzerland. He has been at Helvetia since 2017, initially as Head of Corporate Development and then as Executive Management member of Helvetia Switzerland. Besides MoneyPark, his areas of responsibility included the Helvetia Venture Fund, online insurer Smile and the Customer & Market Management of Helvetia Switzerland.

Martin Jara, CEO of Helvetia Switzerland, adds: "Martin Tschopp has successfully built up the new Customer & Market Management area over the past few years. In doing so, he made a fundamental contribution to an even stronger focus on and proximity to the customer at Helvetia. I am most grateful to him for that. I am convinced that we will seamlessly continue with the successful development of MoneyPark under his leadership."

"It's not easy on an emotional level to organise the succession as company founder, but the time is now right after ten years at the helm of MoneyPark. I am extremely pleased to have a professionally proven successor with outstanding interpersonal skills in Martin Tschopp", explains Stefan Heitmann, founder and CEO of MoneyPark. Helvetia has taken over TX Group's holding in MoneyPark at the same time. Stefan Heitmann remains a shareholder and will stay with MoneyPark as a director with an executive role for major partnerships.

About the Helvetia Group
In over 160 years, the Helvetia Group has grown from a number of Swiss and foreign insurance companies into a successful international insurance group. Helvetia is one of the leading all-line insurers in its home market of Switzerland. With the countries Germany, Italy, Austria and Spain, which have been combined to form the Market Area Europe, the company has a second strong pillar. With its Specialty Markets market area, Helvetia is also present in France and in selected regions worldwide. Some of its investment and financing activities are managed through subsidiaries and fund companies in Luxembourg. The Group is headquartered in St.Gallen, Switzerland.
Helvetia is active in the life and non-life business, and also offers customised specialty lines and reinsurance cover. Its business activities focus on retail customers as well as small and medium-sized companies and larger corporates. With some 11,600 employees, the company provides services to more than 7 million customers. With a business volume of CHF 9.71 billion, Helvetia generated an IFRS result after tax of CHF 281.7 million in financial year 2020. The registered shares of Helvetia Holding are traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange under the symbol HELN.

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