Julius Baer to double its Asian assets

Julius Baer, Switzerland's No.3 private bank, plans to double its Asian assets to 20-25 per cent of its total in five years as it recruits new staff and opens more offices in the fast-growing region.

The private bank is also functioning from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).
 
Julius Baer, which had 166 billion Swiss francs ($155.4 billion) in assets under management as of end-June, derives the bulk of its business in Europe, with Asian clients accounting for just over 10 percent of total assets.

But the bank has identified Asia as its "second home market" and its expansion plans include upgrading its Northeast Asia headquarters in Hong Kong to a booking centre before year-end and opening a representative office in Shanghai next year.

Julius Baer also plans to set up a trust office in Singapore to advise clients in areas such as estate planning, CEO for Asia and the Middle East Thomas Meier said on Monday.

"We are trying to move into a (Singapore) office space that can house 700 people," he said when asked about new hirings. The bank employs over 400 people in Asia, the majority of them in Singapore.

Global private banks are increasingly turning their eyes to Asia, where -- with the exclusion of Japan -- wealth is expected to grow at nearly twice the global rate, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

Private banks in Singapore and Hong Kong, the region's most prominent financial centres, already manage $700 billion.

While Switzerland remains the world's biggest wealth management centre with $2 trillion of offshore managed wealth, the centre came under pressure from an erosion of traditional bank secrecy and a bitter U.S. tax fraud investigation into Swiss bank giant UBS.
 
Julius Baer CEO Boris Collardi said the bank was keen on "selective acquisitions" and has excess capital of 1.2 billion Swiss francs available to support its growth strategy.

"We would love to buy something in Asia... The problem is everybody wants to buy but nobody wants to sell," he said.

Julius Baer has already significantly boosted its presence in Asia thanks to its acquisition last year of the Asian private banking assets of Dutch bank ING.

Julius Baer's Asian operations have seen double-digit increases in new client money and Asia's millionaires will likely see assets grow by an average of 13 per cent annually in the next five years, he added, citing a report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

The wealth manager said it also hoped to "grow opportunistically" in central and eastern Europe as well as in Latin America, the Middle East and Indian subcontinent but will continue to shun the United States.

Collardi said private banking clients were still moving their wealth out of hedge funds and private equity even as institutional money returns to the sector.

Private clients were still cautious in their outlook and the more popular investments at the moment included gold and foreign exchange, he said.

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