The Swiss private bank Julius Baer Group Ltd., which is divesting its asset management business Oct. 1, said it said it will hire more advisers and consider acquisitions.
It aims to attract new investments of as much as 6% of total assets a year through 2012, in part by adding 40 to 50 bankers a year, it said Friday.
The plan calls form "selected hiring of relationship managers," and acquisitions are a possibility, the company said. Share buybacks are not in the company's plans "in the light of the current high level of consolidation in the marketplace," said Boris Collardi, Julius Baer's chief executive officer.
Peter Thorne, an analyst at Helvea in London, said a failed strategy to cross-sell between the hedge fund business and private banking company was one reason behind Baer's decision to divest the asset management business.
"The synergies were never there and the cross-selling has just not happened," said Thorne, who has a "neutral" rating on Julius Baer.
At the asset management business, to be renamed GAM Holding, clients withdrew $24.4 billion in the second half of last year. It now aims to attract net new money of between 6% and 10% of total assets annually through 2012.
Julius Baer bought GAM along with three private banks from UBS AG in December 2005.
Julius Baer is building a bigger network of onshore offices in Europe and continuing its expansion in Asia as Switzerland comes under pressure from the United States, France and Germany to loosen its privacy protection for clients.
Baer has offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Jakarta, and says it wants to make the region, which it sees as having the greatest potential for wealth creation, its "second home."
