Julius Baer became the latest wealth manager to report an influx of client assets at the tail end of 2022 following mass customer withdrawals at its Swiss rival Credit Suisse.
Julius Baer registered SFr9bn ($9.9bn) of inflows in the second half of the year, the bank reported on Thursday morning, saying the “significant acceleration towards year-end” had offset SFr1bn of outflows in the previous six months.
Rising interest rates helped boost the bank’s annual net profits to SFr1bn, but it still lagged last year’s record haul by 12 per cent due to clients taking a more cautious approach to investing at the start of the year.
“We are closing the 2020–2022 strategic cycle with the second-best result ever,” said chief executive Philipp Rickenbacher.
“Across the period we have fundamentally transformed our business, mastered various challenges in the operating environment and achieved all the financial targets we had set ourselves three years ago.”
Clients withdrew billions of dollars from Credit Suisse late last year following social media rumours about its financial health.
Earlier this week, fellow Swiss wealth manager UBS reported an inpouring of client assets in the final quarter of 2022, helping boost its profits by 23 per cent.
UBS bought back $5.6bn of shares last year and said it planned to distribute another $5bn in repurchases this year.
Julius Baer, meanwhile, said it expected to achieve its goal of returning SFr400mn to shareholders in the form of buybacks by the end of February and kept its dividend at SFr2.60 per share.
Shares in the bank have risen more than 40 per cent over the past three months to SFr59.72 as it has benefitted alongside other global banks from rising interest rates.
