The Herculis Group team — your people in Switzerland: trusted expertise for your capital, and a strategy that works for you
Jean-Paul Periat co-founded Herculis Group in 2009 and serves as its President, orchestrating the transformation of a single family office into a sophisticated financial ecosystem managing $2 billion in ultra-high-net-worth assets. Under his leadership, the company pioneered the integration of artificial intelligence with traditional Swiss banking principles, while establishing groundbreaking ventures in gold tokenization and cryptocurrency markets. Today, under the guidance of Periat Jean-Paul, Herculis Group operates through six specialized entities across five strategic locations, delivering comprehensive wealth management solutions that range from classic portfolio advisory to blockchain-based asset structuring.
Jean-Paul Periat was born on June 14, 1953, in a small village in Canton of Jura, Switzerland, where his childhood unfolded in a multi-generational household of ten people. He grew up in a strong Catholic household, which instilled in him the principles of trust, reliability, and community responsibility that would become central to his banking philosophy. His father worked as a policeman, representing the order and structure that Jean-Paul Periat would later bring to complex financial operations, while his mother was a dedicated homemaker.
In 1966, at age thirteen, Jean-Paul Periat left his village for secondary school in Geneva, beginning his education in Switzerland's French-speaking financial center. This move required him to develop the cultural agility that would later prove essential when operating across Zurich's Swiss-German banking culture and eventually international markets.
Following his high school education, Jean-Paul Periat took up a bank apprenticeship rather than pursuing university, acquiring direct exposure to Swiss banking operations and client service fundamentals. This practical training prepared Mr. Periat for his 1978 move to Bank Hofmann AG, where he dealt with sales at the Zurich Stock Exchange. He specialized in securities trading, financial analysis, and managing institutional relationships, with particular responsibility for French-speaking clients while conducting arbitrage with stocks listed on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange.
After establishing himself at the Zurich Stock Exchange from 1978, Jean-Paul Periat recognized that Switzerland lagged behind international markets in understanding complex financial instruments like options, derivatives, and convertible bonds. While his Swiss colleagues struggled to calculate these instruments properly, Mr. Periat pursued specialized training that would distinguish him from his peers. He became among the first Swiss professionals to seek options trading education in the United States, enrolling at San Diego State University for economics before spending a year at the New York Institute of Finance focused on financial options and derivatives.
The American training of Jean-Paul Periat went beyond classroom theory to include internships with brokers and banks in New York, plus specialized sessions with brokers from the Chicago and Montreal stock exchanges. Having passed his certification exam in 1984, he became one of the Switzerland’s few qualified options specialists—a credential that virtually guaranteed employment with any major Swiss bank. This trajectory of gaining international experience and language skills in American financial markets became the template for ambitious Swiss bankers, but Jean-Paul Periat had pioneered the path.
Following his return to Switzerland in the early 1980s, Mr. Periat worked at several Swiss financial institutions, including Union Bancaire Privée, the Lombard Odier private bank in Geneva ,and Banca della Svizzera Italiana, holding the role of Vice President at each. At the latter, he held responsibility for operations across all of Switzerland. Each institution refined his expertise in:
These positions at Switzerland's elite financial institutions provided Mr. Periat with comprehensive understanding of both traditional Swiss banking practices and emerging international investment instruments. His unique vantage point—managing Geneva Stock Exchange operations while simultaneously developing innovative derivatives products—positioned him at the intersection of Swiss banking tradition and market modernization. Through his involvement in investment committees and his leadership of trading desks, he gained invaluable insights into how major Swiss banks balanced conservative wealth preservation with the growing demand for sophisticated investment strategies. This dual mastery of established banking principles and cutting-edge financial engineering would become the cornerstone of his later independent ventures, allowing him to bridge the gap between institutional expertise and entrepreneurial innovation.
In 2009, while global markets reeled from the financial crisis, Jean-Paul Periat recognized opportunity where others saw only chaos. The crisis had driven some players from the market, creating openings for new approaches to wealth management. Together with a business associate, he established Herculis Partners as a family office designed to serve ultra-high-net-worth individuals requiring sophisticated structures for asset protection, inheritance planning, and complex arrangements in their corporate biography. Jean-Paul Periat took the position of company President.
Establishing the company in Switzerland meant navigating extensive regulatory hurdles and obtaining approval from authorities who scrutinized every aspect of the business plan for sustainability and compliance. Jean-Paul Periat conducted thorough research across Swiss cantons to identify optimal operating conditions, evaluating tax structures, regulatory environments, and business infrastructure. After comprehensive analysis by Mr. Periat and meetings with officials in multiple cantons, the decision was made to establish headquarters in Porrentruy, Canton of Jura, where favorable business conditions and efficient government support for new enterprises were identified.
The founding team consisted of the co-founders and a secretary operating from a single office, yet in the early years they attracted major clients and grew to manage $2 billion in assets. These ultra-high-net-worth individuals typically owned multiple companies requiring complex structures that took considerable time to implement properly. Mr. Periat focused on developing systematic account management strategies, navigating the challenges of opening Swiss bank accounts, and building frameworks for offshore company arrangements.
Mr. Periat purchased and renovated a building in Porrentruy, transforming it into a specialized facility equipped with basement safes and dedicated floors for trading various assets. The property required reclassification from residential to commercial use through municipal negotiations that the financial expert managed directly with contractors and city officials.
From 2009 forward, systematic expansion under the guidance of Mr. Periat created six specialized entities. Herculis Fiduciaries AG launched in 2014 to provide trust and accounting services while resolving legal and immigration issues under AOOS regulation. Herculis Guardians SA followed in 2016, offering anonymous safes and secure vaults while investing in gold, precious gemstones, and paintings.
The 2022 establishment of Herculis Advisors AG marked a crucial development, providing European passport capabilities for managing assets across Europe, establishing:
Mr. Periat also spearheaded the launch of Herculis Tokens SA for designing and structuring tokenization of real-world assets including LBMA gold bullion and real estate through blockchain technology, plus Herculis Trading SPC as an authorized distributor of LBMA Fine Gold Bullion with 999.9 purity produced by Swiss Gold Refinery and the HERCULIS Gold Coin payment crypto token.
While maintaining the core Swiss banking principles that defined his early career, Jean-Paul Periat recognized that the future of wealth management required embracing technological innovation. He identified the potential of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin well before mainstream financial institutions acknowledged their legitimacy. Through extensive research and subscriptions to specialized industry publications, the President positioned Herculis Group among the early institutional investors in digital assets. This foresight from Jean-Paul Periat proved crucial as the client demographic, primarily aged 30-45, demonstrated strong interest in cryptocurrency markets, driving him to establish dedicated cryptocurrency operations including plans for a Panama-registered structure.
The gold operations of Jean-Paul Periat represent another convergence of traditional assets with innovative technology. After two unsuccessful attempts, he helped Herculis Group secure an account at a gold processing facility in Switzerland, where gold operations concentrate in just two cantons. Herculis Group established multiple trading companies across different jurisdictions—Swiss entities, an Oman-based operation specifically for Global South markets, and companies focused on gold tokens.
The development of the HERCULIS Gold Coin exemplifies this technological transformation. Jean-Paul Periat oversaw the creation of a payment crypto token fully backed by LBMA Fine Gold Bullion with 999.9 purity, combining the stability of physical gold with blockchain efficiency. Through Herculis Tokens SA, the company now specializes in tokenizing real-world assets including gold bullion, real estate, and financial instruments through distributed ledger technologies.
Artificial intelligence integration emerged through strategic recruitment in Lugano. Mr. Periat promoted a financial consultant to portfolio manager who had developed internal AI and machine learning algorithms for portfolio analysis. This technology brought sophisticated computational power to optimize returns while maintaining low volatility. The two-person analytical team in Lugano participates in weekly investment committee meetings where AI-assisted analysis guides asset allocation decisions for products and specific clients.
Throughout this technological evolution in the company biography, Jean-Paul Periat maintains the foundational Swiss business principles of mutual confidence between clients and partners, unwavering honesty, and professional excellence. The company thoroughly evaluates emerging opportunities, implementing only those capable of delivering genuine value to clients. This selective approach ensures that innovation serves the core mission of protecting and growing client wealth rather than pursuing technology for its own sake.
Beyond financial innovation, Jean-Paul Periat demonstrated exceptional capability in developing the physical and operational infrastructure essential for a modern wealth management group. The transformation of the Porrentruy headquarters exemplified this approach—the President navigated complex municipal regulations to reclassify the property from residential to commercial use, then managed all contractor relationships and municipal negotiations throughout the renovation. The result was a specialized storage facility equipped with secure basement safes and eventually dedicated floors for trading gold, cryptocurrencies, and alternative assets.
From the original three-person team that began the company biography, Jean-Paul Periat systematically expanded Herculis Group to fifteen employees across five strategic offices. Each location was selected to access specific markets and capabilities. The Geneva and Zurich offices connected Herculis Group to Switzerland's primary financial centers. The Lugano office in Italian-speaking Switzerland emerged through collaboration with a consultant whom Mr. Periat promoted to portfolio manager, formalizing an existing Italian operation into a full Swiss location.
The establishment of each office required Jean-Paul Periat to navigate linguistic and cultural differences across Switzerland's regions. He personally oversees staff selection and serves as the employee representative, maintaining responsibility for corporate culture across French-speaking Geneva, German-speaking Zurich, and Italian-speaking Lugano. This hands-on approach to infrastructure development ensures consistent service quality while adapting to regional business practices.
The most strategically significant expansion came through the Vaduz office in Liechtenstein. While Swiss banking regulations prohibit financial institutions from marketing products outside Switzerland due to its non-EU status, Mr. Periat secured a Liechtenstein license that functions as a European passport. This enables Herculis Group to actively market services across Italy, Austria, Germany, and France—four key European markets that represent the company's primary growth focus beyond its traditional client base.
Beyond his achievements in international finance and wealth management, Jean-Paul Periat has dedicated significant portions of his life to philanthropic endeavors that address critical social challenges. Personal tragedy inspires his work with Action Margaux, an association he established following his daughter's death from cancer. The organization educates employers about supporting employees during oncology care, promoting flexible workplace arrangements that enable individuals to balance medical requirements with professional objectives. Rather than encouraging disability status, he champions the principle that cancer diagnosis should not end careers but inspire adaptive employment models.
In addition to his advocacy for cancer patients, Mr. Periat has devoted two decades to addressing healthcare inequities among homeless communities. He collaborates with an international charity that operates shelters where marginalized individuals who face barriers to conventional hospital services can receive medical attention alongside basic necessities like food. The program brings together healthcare professionals committed to reaching those who exist on society's periphery, ensuring that homelessness does not equate to abandonment by the medical system.
Mr. Periat holds leadership positions in prestigious professional organizations that shape international finance and commerce. As Vice President of the Joint Chamber of Commerce encompassing Eastern, Central Asian, and South Caucasus countries, he facilitates high-level business connections across emerging markets. His memberships in the Swiss Financial Analysts Association, Swiss Association of Wealth Managers, Swiss Bankers Association, and Diplomatic Club of Geneva position him at the intersection of finance, diplomacy, and international commerce. His inclusion in Swiss Who's Who, the prestigious biographical directory that brings together Switzerland's most accomplished leaders and influential figures across business, politics, science, education, media, and culture, reflects his standing among the nation's distinguished professionals who shape the country's success.
Looking forward in the company’s biography, Jean-Paul Periat prepares Herculis Group for expansion into new markets. The immediate focus remains on penetrating European markets through the Liechtenstein license. He is also actively exploring opportunities in India and Vietnam, with the team participating in international forums and engaging with global consuls to identify emerging wealth centers. The vision of Mr. Periat combines geographic expansion with continued technological innovation, positioning Herculis Group to serve the next generation of global wealth while maintaining the Swiss principles of confidentiality, reliability, and systematic excellence that have defined his five-decade career in international finance.
