Serious Setback in Julius Baer’s Turnaround
Julius Baer, the venerable Swiss private bank, has suffered fresh loan losses and ousted its Chief Risk Officer.
Julius Baer has hit another bump on its path to recovery. The wealth manager had planned to report on business performance for the first four months this Thursday, but the announcement went out on Tuesday evening instead.
Recently, Julius Baer was already hard hit by the collapse of René Benko’s Austrian property group Signa, ultimately writing off 586 million Swiss francs ($710 million).
New Chief Risk Officer
In the wake of the Signa loss, the bank announced it would withdraw from private debt lending. According to Tuesday’s statement, «significant progress» has been made: only 2 million francs of such loans remain outstanding, equivalent to 0.4 percent of the total loan book.
Despite the progress, the latest incident has cost chief risk officer Oliver Bartholet his job. Effective 1 July 2025, he will be succeeded by Ivan Ivanic, who only joined Julius Baer in February 2025 as chief credit officer. Bartholet is retiring.
All legal functions, and, for the time being, all compliance functions as well, will be consolidated under Christoph Hiestand, group general counsel, while the bank searches for a new chief compliance officer.
Strong Swiss Franc Clouds Figures
During the first four months of the year, Julius Baer attracted net new money of 4.2 billion francs (an annualized growth rate of 2.5 percent), mainly from clients in Asia (particularly Hong Kong and Singapore) and Western Europe (UK and Germany).
Because of the strong Swiss franc, however, assets under management (AUM) fell to 467 billion francs, representing a decline of 6 percent. Julius Baer puts the negative currency effect versus the dollar at 28 million francs.
