SWISS private bank Julius Baer, which currently has £300 billion of assets under its management, has arrived in Northern Ireland to court some of the region's wealthiest individuals.
And the Zurich-based bank, which has seen a splurge of new money from Asia, the Middle East and Monaco in the last year, has poached a number of ex-bankers from Barclays' wealth management division to help its push in targeting the north's super-rich.
The renowned private banking group, whose origins date back to 1890 (it has been in London for 50 years and Dublin for nearly 20), confirmed it is opening hubs in Belfast as well as Manchester, Leeds and Edinburgh.
In Belfast, its senior team will include former Barclays bankers Glenn Branney, an accomplished chartered financial planner with more than 17 years’ advisory experience, and Jonathan Dobbin, who has built up extensive experience looking after key clients specialising in high net worth individuals.
David Durlacher, chief executive of Julius Baer International, speaking in Belfast, told the Irish News: "We're thrilled to welcome such a strong cohort of experienced individuals to the team here. Their expertise will give clients local access to our superior wealth management offering."
He added: "Despite the complexities of the political situation in Northern Ireland, this is the right time for Julius Baer to enter the market, where we are seeing strong shoots of recovery and where the region's reputation internationally is increasing.
"Many other financial institutions are looking to scale back, but we have complete confidence in the local economy. We started life as a family business, and in Northern Ireland 72 of the top 100 firms are controlled by families, so there's a real synergy here."
Mr Durlacher said the Belfast team will actively target business owners, entrepreneurs and other wealthy individuals in Northern Ireland (the minimum entry level for these sophisticated private clients, however, is £1 million), with its primary focus being to serve those clients with best-in-class advice and holistic wealth management solutions.
Julius Baer, which five years ago acquired Merrill Lynch’s International Wealth Management business outside the US which substantially increased its footprint in established markets, offers a wide range of financial services and investment advice to ultra high worth individuals.
